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TRANSFORMATION SCENE. 




THEATRICAL 



AND 



CIRCUS LIFE; 



OR, 



SECRETS OF THE STAGE, 
GREEN-ROOM AND SAWDUST ARENA. 



EMBRACING 

A. HISTORY OF THE THEATRE FROM SHAKESPEARE'S TIME TO THE PRESENT 
DAY, AND ABOUNDING IN ANECDOTES CONCERNING THE MOST PROMI- 
NENT ACTORS AND ACTRESSES BEFORE THE PUBLIC; ALSO, A 
COMPLETE EXPOSITION OF THE MYSTERIES OF THE STAGE, 
SHOWING THE MANNER IN WHICH WONDERFUL SCENIC AND 
OTHER EFFECTS ARE PRODUCED; THE ORIGIN AND 
GROWTH OF NEGRO MINSTRELSY; THE MOST ASTON- 
ISHING TRICKS OF MODERN MAGICIANS, AND A 
HISTORY OF THE HIPPODROME, ETC., ETC. 



Illustrated with Numerous Engravings and 
Fine Colored Plates. 






By JOHN J. JENNINGS. 



ST. LOUIS : 
SUN PUBLISHING CO, 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1882, by 

SUN PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



PROLOGUE. 

The theatre and the circus, both sources of unlim- 
ited amusement to the world, are .also objects of the 
greatest interest to all who have had even a single 
peep at the stage or pressed their feet even once upon 
the sawdust precincts of the tented show. The tricks 
and illusions that are mystifying to nine-tenths of 
those to whom they are presented rarely fail to be 
productive of pleasure, and the performers, whether 
before the foot-lights or within the circus ring, gen-, 
erally succeed in so thoroughly winning the hearts of 
the public, that, though their faces, when the paint is 
off and the atmosphere of glory has departed, might 
not be recognized upon the street, their names are so 
fixedly identified with the pleasant moments associated 
with their art, that they become household words, and 
are spoken, with admiration and praise, by all classes, 
from the newsboy and bootblack up through the vari- 
ous strata of society even to the ruler of the nation. 

In presenting this volume to the public the inten- 
tion has been to bring the player and the people into 
closer relations, and by revealing the secrets of the 
stage and sawdust arena to show that what appears at 
first to be deep mystery and to many, who are bigoted 
and averse to theatrical and kindred entertainments, 
the blackest diabolism, is merely the result of the 
simplest combinations of mechanical skill and studied 
art, and is as innocent of the sinister character be- 
stowed upon it as are the efforts of school children at 
their annual exhibitions or the exercises of a Sabbath 
School class before a row of drowsy and nodding church- 
deacons. Fault may be found with the private lives 

(3) 



4 PROLOGUE. 

of numbers of the members of the theatrical and cir- 
cus profession, but the sins and shortcomings of indi- 
viduals, can be visited upon the entire class with no 
more justice than can the frailties of a few preachers 
be applied generally to the pulpit, or the dishonesty 
of a handful of lawyers be reflected upon all the dis- 
ciples of Blackstone in existence. Neither is it just to 
class as theatres places of resort that do not deserve 
the name — the "dives" and "dens" that are fre- 
quented by disreputable men and women whose low 
tastes are catered to by men and women every bit as 
disreputable as their patrons. Such establishments 
receive, in this volume, only the severe treatment they 
fully merit. 

In explaining the mysteries of stage representa- 
tions, and indicating the tricks of ring performances, 
as well as in speaking of the private lives of performers 
and giving biographies of the most noted actors and 
actresses now before the public, an attempt has been 
made to be perfectly accurate in every detail. The 
anecdotal portion of the book has likewise received 
careful attention, and indeed every feature of the 
work has been given due consideration, in the hope 
that in and out of the profession, Theatrical and 
Circus Life may meet with a favorable reception and 
be regarded as worthy the subjects of which it treats. 
Commending it to the kindness of all into whose 
hands it falls ; and assuring the inhabitants of the 
mimic and real worlds, that, whatever construction 
may be placed upon his sentences, naught but respect 
and affection is felt for the true and good men and 
women of the stage, the author parts from his volume 
regretting that it is not large enough to give everybody 
a place in its pages, or to say as much about each in- 
dividual as each deserves. J. J. J. 

St. Louis, August 1, 1882. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 

A PRELIMINARY PEEP. 

Aa trl? F t S - Cerbcrus at the Back Door-The Awe- 
Stricken Stranger behind the Scene -Swarms of Ac 
tors and Employees- Description of Stage Scttitsl 

V sit tTlT aDd J? reSSin «- R o<»« Explored -A 
fh-ff i, . Dre ss,ng.Tent of the Circus -An Act 
that Beats anything of the kind in the World -The 
Female Minstrel Gang and the Break-o'-Day ffirls 

CHAPTER II. 

A THEATRE OF SHAKESPEARE'S DAY. 

* a V e :Zlr^Z St * SeS - F ° n ™ d by Stone Thea- 
Period Sun, ^-Theatres <* the Elizabethan 
xenod - Sunday Theatres in the "Golden iee'» 
Description of the Globe iu Shakespeare' Time Z 
Plays in the Times of Henrv VIFI <!i„„ k ? 
Scene Adote of vE^lg*^ 

a^n^Gos^-^^^^r^ ^ 
CHAPTER in. 

THE AMERICAN THEATRE 

TKn t,. x , v °y a % e m the Charming Sallv in 1 7*59 
The First American Theatrp Th. v> . tT ~~ 

The First New York Th^" T ? e F,rst gramme - 

formanee in kTlade^hil !' 53 - The Fi ^ **- 
ou "iiaaeiphia, April, l?^ ti,o t-.- a 

Show in Boston, August 792 Th/t~T * ,rSt 
Spanish Lady-Ele"a„ Th^T f^ and the 

Period - ° Theatres of the Present 



PAGES 



19-27 



28-36 



37-42 



(5) 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. 



AT THE STAGE-DOOR. 



Front Door and Back Door Entrances — " Mashers " at the 
"Stage-Door " — The Cerberus who Stands Guard — 
Perquisites Paid to Him — Bulkhead and the Ballet 
Girls — The Tricks of the Scene Painter on the Girls — 
The Girls' Revenge — Bold and Heartless Lovers — 
Notes Pushed under the Dressing-Room Door — Alice 
Oates's Mash — Watching the Manoeuvres of the 
" Mashers " — Tale of the Pink Symmetricals 



43-54 



CHAPTER V. 

BEFORE THE FOOT-LIGHTS. 

People who Patronize the Theatre — The Young Blood — 
Members of the "Profesh" — The Giddy and Gushing 
Usher — The Bouncer — The Peanut Cruncher — The 
People who go out "Between Acts" — The Big Hat 
Nuisance — Anecdote of George and Harry - - - 55-68 

CHAPTER VI. 

BEHIND THE SCENES. 

An Amateur Theatre — The Author's Experience as " Imp" 

in a Spectacular Scene — A Trip to the Moon - - 69-85 



CHAPTER VII. 

IN THE DRESSING-ROOM. 

Goodwin's " Make-up " for Hobbies — Booth and Company 
Playing "Hamlet" in Street Costume — Dressing- 
Rooms of Old-Time and Present Theatres — Louis 
Harrison Spoils a Play at San Erancisco — How Actors 
" Make up " for Various Parts — The Hair-Dresser 
and the Actress 



86-105 



CHAPTER VIII. 

WITHIN THE WINGS. 

The Stage Prompter and His Duties — Actors who " Stick" 
and some who " Never Stick " — A Popular Actress and 



CONTENTS, 



"AGES 



her Useful Husband — The Firemen's Amours — Mary 
Anderson and Her Chewing-Gum — Emmet's Indiscre- 
tions 106-121 

CHAPTER IX. 

STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS. 

Burning of the Southern Hotel and Kate Claxton's Pres- 
ence — Superstitions of John McCullough, Raymond, 
Joe Jefferson, Sothern, Florence, Booth, Chanfrar, 
Byron, Thorne, Neilson, Lotta, etc., etc. — Courtaiuc 
and Ince - - - 122-143 

CHAPTER X. 

NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 

Actors who Memorize whole Newspapers — Lovely Peggy — 
Kean Dying as he Played — Sol. Smith's Fuuny Adven- 
ture — A Masher made Serviceable — Charlotte Cush- 
man and the Colored Bell-Boy who brought Down the 
House — The Call-Boy's Revenge — The Lecturer, 
Trick Candle and Trap Door — An English Performance 
of William Tell U4-161 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 

Mrs. Bellamy and Mr. St. Leger in Dublin — Rousseau's 
Description of Paris Opera — Modern Mechanism — 
Producing Steam, Fire, Thunder, Lightning, etc. — 
Olive Logan and her Jewels — Snow Storm in " The 
Two Orphans" — Rain in "Hearts of Oak" — Rivu- 
lets in " Danites " — Funny Inventory of "Property " 
in a London Theatre 162-182 

CHAPTER XII. 

MORE OF THE MYSTERIES. 

The Property-Man and his Duties — Sunlight — Moon- 
light — Twinkling of Stars — Ocean Waves — Fire in 
"Phoenix " and " Streets of New York " — Full Descrip- 
tion of the Famous Raft Scene 183-194 



O CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

THE ARMY OF ATTACHES. 

PAGES 

Broken Down or " Crushed " Actors as Door-Keepers — 
The Treasurer of the Theatre — The Usher — Orchestra 
and Leader — Stage Manager — The Scenic Artist — 
The Stage Carpenter, Supes and Minor Attaches, and 
Last but not Least the Call-Boy 195-205 

CHAPTER XIV. 

STAGE STRUCK. 

The Young Man from Cahokia — The Box of Gags — 
Stage Struck Girls of Louisville — The College Graduate 
from Illinois — "The Warrior Bowed His Crested 
Head"— The "N. G." Curtain — Marie Dixon's Fail- 
ure — Mrs. H. M. Lewis, of Charleston, Duped by 
Schwab & Kummel — Harry Kussell Pscudo "Mana- 
ger " —A Colored Troop's Curious Epistle - - - 206-22G 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE REHEARSAL. 

Old-Time and Present Rehearsals — Olive Logan's Descrip- 
tion of a Rehearsal — Rehearsal of the Corps de Bal- 
let — Appearance of Taglion-i, Cerito, Carlotta Grisi, 
Lucile Grahn at Her Majesty's Theatre, in London - 227-2-iO 

CHAPTER XVI. 

CANDIDATES FOR SHORT CLOTHES. 

Advertising for Ballet Girls — Salaries Paid them — Who 
Apply — Where the Can-Can Flourishes — The Ups and 
Downs of a Ballet Girl's Life — The Nautch Dancers 241-250 

CHAPTER XVII. 

TRAINING BALLET DANCERS. 

Interviewing Sig. J. F. Cardella — The French School 
Theatre La Scala — Amount of Practice Required — The 
American Ballet — Salaries of Premieres, Coryphees, 
etc. — The Time Required — A Little Fond and Foolish 
at Times 251-2G3 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS. 

The Trials and Tribulations of the Gawky Young Drama- 



CONTENTS. 9 

PAGES 

tist — English, French and American Playwrights — 
The Desire for Foreign Plays — Bartley Campbell's 
Christmas Story 264-276 

CHAPTER XIX. 

MASHERS AND MASHING. 

Gunakophagists or Woman-Eaters — Corner Loafers — 
Mashers of the Profession — Female Mashers — The 
Blonde Beauties of the Leg Drama — Model Letter — 
Lillian Russell's Escapades — " Patti " and the Midget 
" Foster " — The Old Masher Squeezed — The Girl in 
Red Tights at Uhrig's Cave — Music and Mashing - 276-295 

CHAPTER XX. 

THE MAIDEN AND THE TENOR. 

Ambleleg — His Soul Full of Art and Throat Full of 
Music — Miss Justaytine the Pink of Beauty and Per- 
fection of Belleship — The Chorus Singer Mashed on 
the Maiden — The Mash Mutual — The Brother and 
Lover Mash the Tenor — Suit for $10,000 and the Com- 
promise 296-302 

CHAPTER XXI. 

FISHING FOR FREE PUFFS. 

A First-Class Puff in a Leadville Paper — All Anxious to 
Appear in Print — Various Ways of Puffing — Sending 
Photos — Diamond Robberies — Falling Heir to a For- 
tune, etc. — Minnie Palmer's Artless Display of Un- 
derwear — The Abbott Kiss — Catherine Lewis Fling — 
Emelie Melville's Presents to Critics — The Morning 
Buzzard and the Evening Crow ----- 303-314 

CHAPTER XXII. 

THE ACTRESS AND THE INTERVIEWER. 

All Performers must Meet the Interviewing Fiend — How 
the Interviewer is Received by Patti, Nilsson, Gerster, 
Kellogg, Cary, Hauk, Abbott, Bernhardt, Morris, Mod- 
jeska, Neilson, Anderson, Davenport, Mitchell, Lotta, 
and Others 315-319 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 

Mistress Woffington — Children as Actors and Actresses — 



10 CONTENTS. 

PAGES 

Little Corinne — Debut of Emma Livry — Nell Gwynne 
the Fish Girl — Lola Montez, the Pretty Irish Girl — 
Adah Isaacs Menken as Mazeppa — Mary Anderson the 
Tragedienne — Lotta and Maggie Mitchell, and a Host 
of Others 320-342 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

CHINESE AND JAPANESE THEATRICALS. 

Great Length of the Play — Description of a Chinese Thea- 
tre — The Prompter — The Audience — The Actors — 
The Musicians — Japanese Theatres — No " Reserved 
Seats " — Prices of Admission — Side Shows - - 343-352 

CHAPTER XXV. 

OPERA AND OPERA SINGERS. 

Palmo, the Father of Italian Opera in America — Interview 
with Col. Mapleson — The Cost of Rigging a Com- 
pany — What it Costs Every Time the Curtain is Rung 
Up — Mmc. Grisi's Superstition — The Best Operas — 
Salaries of Singers — Neilson and the Diamond Mer- 
chant - 353-3CG 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE MINSTREL BOYS. 

Emmet, Brower, Whitlock and Pelham among the Earliest — 
Pot-Pie Herbert — Daddy Rice and Jim Crow — Zip 
Coon — Coal Black Rose — My Long Tail Blue — Early 
Days of George Christy — Minstrel Men Generally Im- 
provident — Minstrel Men as Mashers — Haverly's Mas- 
todon Minstrels — The Boys at Rehearsal - - -367-381 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

PANTOMIME. 

George L. Fox, the King — G. H. Adams, his Successor — 

Boxing Night in London - . - - - - - 382-388 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 

First-Class Varieties — Harry Hill's Famous Resort — In- 
terview with Harry Hill — Ida and Johnnie — Deacons 
in a Dive — The Bouncer at Work — The Cow-Boy's 
Call for Mary — The Can-Can — Music by Bands — 
Over the Rhine - - 389-115 



CONTENTS. 11 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

A TEAM OF IRISH COMEDIANS. 

PAGES 
The Song and Dance Men — Harrigan & Hart — Levi Mc- 

Ginnis the Alderman 416-429 

CHAPTER XXX. 

THE BLACK ART. 

Sword Swallowers — Jugglers in America, Europe, China, 
and Hindoostan — Herman Sells the Barbers — Her- 
man Sold by the "Boys" — Wonderful Chinese Jug- 
glers — How Ladies are Suspended in Mid-Air — How 
to Eat Fire — Walk on Red Hot Iron — Cut off a Man's 
Head, etc., etc. - - - - - - - - 430-439 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

THE INDIAN BOX AXD BASKET TRICK. 

The Trick-Box — The Board — The Basket — The Magi- 
cian's " Ghost Story " 440-448 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

VENTRILOQUISM. 

Prof. Kennedy and Val Yose — Louis Brabant Valet de 
Chambre to Erancis I. Wins Wife and Fortune through 
his Wonderful Gift — M. St. Gille and his Wonderful 
Exploits — Alexandre and the Load of Hay — The De- 
lusion Fully Explained — How to do it — The Suffo- 
cated Victim --------- 449-458 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

ON THE ROAD. 

Making Dates at the " the Square " — Copy of Contracts — 

Billing the Town — The Cyclonic Advance Agent - 459-465 

CHAPTER XXXIY. 

THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 

The Street Arabs and Lotta — The Stage at the Beginning 
of the Eighteenth Century — Little "Accidents " of 
Bernhardt and Indiscretions of Patti — " Sudden John- 
nie " and Colombier — Lizzie McCall's Crime — Miss 
Bertha Welby and Miss Cleves — The " Old Gray " and 
the Skipping Rope Dancer — Husband and Wife and 
Ballet Girl — Mephistopheles and Venus - - -466-483 



12 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

JOHN WILKES BOOTH, PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S ASSASSIN. 

PAGES 

Shooting of Abraham Lincoln — Booth's Rehearsal at Wal- 
laces— An Old Actor's Opinion of J. W. Booth — His 
Bichard the IH. a Fine Piece of Acting — Booth and 
Collier as Bichard and Bichmond 484-491 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE SUMMER VACATION. 

How the Stars and Lesser Lights Disport Themselves — 
Actors at the Seaside — The " Old Gray " Surprises the 
Actors at the Banquet — Millions Spent upon Theatri- 
cals .... 492-501 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

FUN AMONG THE ELKS. 

Who the ''•Elks " are — Jughandle's Friend Wants to be an 
Elk — Getting the Candidate Ready — The High Muck- 
a-Muck — The Peculiar Circle — The Descent — The 
Path of Progress — The Upward Flight to Glory — 
Down! Down! ! Down! ! ! — On " Eincycle " —The 
Merciful Net— An Elk 502-511 

CHAPTER XXXVIIL 

THE CIRCUS IS HERE. 

The Disengaged Canvasman's Poetry — Circus Posters — 
The Grand Parade — The $25,000 Beauty — Twelve 
Ponies and Forty Horses on a Rampage — Henry Clay 
Scott and his Aged Father — Sold his Stove to go to 
the Circus - - - - - ... . 512-521 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

UNDER THE CANVAS. 

The Small Boy and the Circus — Beating the Show — Slack 
Wire and Balloon Performances — Donaldson's 111- 
Fated Trip — Frightful Accident in Mexico — Circus 
Green-Room and Dressing-Rooms — The Clown — Bare- 
back Riders and Tumblers — Merryman's Admission 
Fee — The Clown's Baby 522-535 

CHAPTER XL. 

ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 

Training Children — Olive Logan on the Circus — Trapeze 



CONTENTS. I.) 

PAGES 

Performers — Tight Rope Feats — Training Riders — 
The Leading Equestrienne — The Great English Rider, 
Miss Lily Deacon — The Georgia Lady's Experience — 
Cow-Boys Raid on the Ring - - 536-552 

CHAPTER XLI. 

A ROMANCE OF THE KINO.. 

Shadowville — Miss Nannie Florenstein, the most Wonder- 
ful Bareback Rider in the World — Her Cruel Task- 
master — Ned Struthers to the Rescue — 'All's Well 
that Ends Well" 553-562 

CHAPTER XLII. 

LEAPING AND TUMBLING. 

The Athlete of Ancient Rome — Grand . and Lofty Tum- 
bling of To-day — Double and Triple Somersaults - 563-571 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

AN ADVENTURE WITH GIANTS. 

Capt. M. V. Bates and Wife— The Tallest Couple in the 
World — The Eat Woman and the Living Skeleton — 
The Circassian Girl 572-580 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

THE TATTOOED TWINS. 

The "Ad." in the Morning Paper — Capt. Costentenus — 
The Modus Operandi — Henneberry and the "Old 
Salt " — Singular Story Told by Henry Frumell — Tat- 
tooed by South Pacific Savages .... 581-589 

CHAPTER XLV. 

IN THE MENAGERIE. 

Zazel Shot out of a Cannon — The Zulus — Gen. Tom 
Thumb and Wife — Thumb and Campanini — Hugged 
and Kissed by an Ape — Millie Christine the Famous 
Two-Headed Lady — The Eighth Wonder of the 
World — Jocko Spoils a Comedy — Circus in Winter 
Quarters 590-608 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

Frontispiece (Colored Plate) 1 

Bulkhead and the Ballet Girls 18 

Lotta 22 

Decorating the Scene Painter - 47 

The 4 ' Masher" --------- 56 

The Big Hat 61 

George and Harry -------- 63 

Louise Montague -- 64 

Maude Branscombe 65 

SelinaDolaro _..... GS 

John McCullough - 70 

Belle Howett ■ - 73 

M'lleHouget - 76 

LillieWest 79 

Pauline Markham (Colored Plate"* 80 

Adah Isaac Menken _....... 83 

Millie La Fonte --------- 85 

Ballet Girls Dressing-Room 87 

Edwin Booth -*--------- 89 

McKee Rankin .._..- 91 

The Three Villas 93 

Sarah Bernhardt --------- 96 

The Late Adelaide Neilson ------- 99 

Dressing an Actress's Hair 102 

Marie Roze - 105 

In the Green-Room 106 

A Green-Room Tableau 107 

Getting their " Lines " -------- 109 

Wine in the Wings - - - 110 

Improving Spare Moments - • - - - - - - 112 

An Actress's Useful Husband 113 

Making Love in the Side Scenes 115 

The Fire Laddie's Mistake - - 117 

Sobering a Comedian - - - - - - - - 120 

McCullough as Virginius 121 

KateClaxton 123 

The Late Venie Clancie - - - 126 

(14) 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. If) 

PAOB 

Catherine Lewis 128 

Chanfrau 131 

Fanny Davenport 134 

Dion Boucicault - - - 135 

Mrs. Boucicault 136 

Maud Granger 139 

M'lle Montrose 143 

Lizzie McCall 145 

Pin up my Skirts 148 

Annie Pixley as M'liss , 150 

The Call Boy's Revenge - - 151 

Nell Gwynne -- 154 

Emma Thursby . . - 156 

Lillian Russell •- 158 

Joe Jefferson 159 

Lola Montez 160 

Lizzie Webster (Colored Plate) 160 

Lawrence Barrett __.. igi 

J. K. Emmett 164 

John T. Raymond 166 

Katherine Rogers --------- 168 

Josephine D'Orme 170 

Cora Pearl - 173 

Lester Wallack - - - - 175 

Clara Morris 177 

Helen Dingeon --------- 178 

Scott-Siddons - 181 

JohnParselle ----- 184 

Sol Smith Russell - - 187 

Rose Coghlan ... 189 

The Raft Scene --------- 192 

Minnie Hauk 197 

Helping the Scene Painter ------- 201 

The Old Woman of the Company 204 

The Esthetic Drama 205 

Kitty Blanchard - 209 

Photographing an Amateur - - 213 

Marie Prescott as Parthenia 217 

Mme. Fanny Janauschek __--_-_ 222 

Rose Eytinge 226 

Agnes Booth 230 

"Now then, Ladies and Gentlemen, all Together " - - 234 

Training Ballet Dancers - - 235 

National Dances 237 

Marion Elmore (Colored Plate) 240 



16 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

Drilling for the Chorus 245 

The "Sucker" 248 

Wine in the Green-Room ------- 253 

Ballet Beauties --------- 255 

Measuring for the Costume - 257 

Waiting to go on 260 

A Premiere before the Audience ------ 262 

A Bowery " Masher " -------- 276 

How She Won Him - 278 

Working a Greeny at a Matinee 280 

From one of the Mashed 282 

Adelina Patti's " Mash " 287 

An Actor's " Mash " 288 

A Monkey Spoiling a Mash ------- 292 

Ambleleg 295 

Serving a Writ on Fanny Davenport ----- 304 

Ernesti Rossi 307 

Slippers for Free Puffs 311 

Miss Connolly (Colored Plate) ----- 320 

Little Corinne - 322 

Taglioni Congratulating Emma Livry 326 

Lotta 332 

Maggie Mitchell ---- 333 

Emma Abbott 334 

Called before the Curtain 338 

Fay Templeton - - - - 342 

Chinese Theatre 348 

Chinese Property Room -------- 351 

Minnie Maddern --------- 352 

Crowning a Tenor --------- 356 

Patti 359 

Gerster 361 

George Christy 370 

You are the Sort of Man I Like 373 

Jim Crow 378 

Shoo-fly 380 

Fencing Scene in Black Crook 390 

Having a Good Time 392 

Harry Hill's Free and Easy 394 

She Tickled Him Under the Chin 399 

M'lle. Genevieve (Colored Plate) - - - - 400 

Row in the Show 402 

Selling her Picture - - -.- - - - - - 404 

Can-Can 405 

An Orgie in the Wine-Room 406 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 17 

PAGE 

Dragging a Victim 107 

A "Bowery " on a Lark 408 

Concert Saloon Band 410 

Female Band Ill 

Female Orchestra .j]_> 

Over the Rhine n:; 

An Ideal Masher 414 

Hdwin Harrigan 417 

Tony Hart 418 

Herman's Sell \:y> 

The Box Trick, Fig. 1 440 

The Box Trick, Fig. 2 441 

The Box Trick, Fig. 3 . 441 

The Box Trick, Fig. i 442 

The Box Trick, Fig. 5 - . 443 

On the Road 4G5 

The McCall Tragedy 472 

Blackmailing an Actress 474 

Jealousy 47G 

Husband, Wife and Ballet Girl 478 

Out in the Cold -• 480 

John Wilkes Booth 4s;, 

At the Seaside 493 

John W. Norton - 490 

Mart Anderson (Colored Plate) 496 

A Candidate in Regalia 504 

Muck-a-Muck - 508 

The Circus World - 512 

Twenty-five Thousand Dollar Beauty 517 

Playing Circus 520 

Beating the Circus - 523 

W. H. Donaldson 525 

Catalina Georgio's Frightful Death 52G 

M'lle Geraldine and Little Gerry 537 

Trapeze 53:) 

Mdme Lasalle 542 

Annie Livingstone (Colored PlateJ .... 545 

Circus Riders 546 

Cow Boys Raid on the Ring 550 

Leaping - - - - 565 

Merryman and the Girls 580 

Stealing a Kiss 596 

Jocko Playing Comedy 599 

Curtain - - 608 




BULKHEAD AND THE BALLET GIRLS. 



(18) 



CHAPTER I. 



A PRELIMINARY PEEP. 



Anybody can get into the auditorium of a theatre 
by paying an admission fee reaching from twenty-five 
cents up to $1.50, and the sawdust precincts of the 
circus may be penetrated for the modest sum of fifty 
cents ; but behind the curtain of the theatre and beyond 
the screened door through which circus attractions enter 
the exhibition arena, are sacred places, with secrets 
that are so valuable to their owners that they dare not 
for less than a small fortune allow the public to view 
or even to understand them. A o-eneral knowledge 
of the simplicity of theatrical and circus tricks — of 
the delusions that make up the stock in trade of show- 
men generally — would destroy their value as salable 
articles, and make everybody a little Bar num. or Jack 
Haverly of his own, with ability to furnish himself 
with amusement at home, while the former masto- 
donic managers could only look on and weep at the 
educational facilities with which the country was over- 
run, and mourn the Shakespearian days when people 
were easily pleased with the poverty-ridden stage and 
bare representations that were offered them. But 
there is no fear that the public will ever be instructed 
up to such a high degree in regard to the inside work- 
ings of the theatre and circus, that there will not at 
all times be plenty of patrons for both these excellent 
forms of entertainment. The managers take good care 

(19) 



20 A PRELIMINARY PEEP. 

to keep their secrets to themselves, as those who go 
prying around the shrines in which the theatric arcana 
are held, very soon find out. At the back door of 
every theatre — the entrance to the stage — is a cer- 
berus of the most pronounced kind, who would sooner 
bite his own grandfather's ear off than allow anybody 
not entitled to the privilege, to pass him ; while at the 
door of the circus dressing-room and all around it are 
faithful sentinels who will listen to no password, and 
through whose ranks it is as impossible to break as it 
is for the fat boy in the side show to throw a double 
somersault over seventeen horses, with an elephant as 
big as Jumbo at the far end of the line, It will, how- 
ever, be the proud privilege of the readers of this book 
to get as close to the secrets of the stage and sawdust 
arena as one can well do without knowing absolutely all 
about them, and by the time the last page is read and 
the volume is ready to be closed, I think the readers 
will be both delighted and astonished with the revela- 
tions that have been made. 

Turn the average man loose on the stage of a theatre 
at night, while a play is going on, and it is a Russian 
kobol against a whole San Juan mining district that he 
will not know whether he has struck the seventh circle 
of heaven or is in a lunatic asylum. He will meet 
some very queer creatures in the scenes ; he will see 
many strange things ; the brilliant lights around him, 
the patches of color flashing into his eyes, the sea of 
faces and the tangle of millinery in the auditorium, will 
mystify him ; the startling streaks of black upon the 
faces of the men and women who jostle him as he 
closely hugs the wings, their red noses and blooming 
cheeks, the general tomato-can aspect of their faces, 
the shaggy wigs and straggling beards that look as if 
they had been torn off the back of a goat only ten 



A PRELIMINARY PEEP. 21 

minutes before ; the dismal, commonplace clothes that 
shine so radiantly when seen from a chair in the par- 
quette or dress circle, — all these things will set his poor 
brain in a whirl ; and whiie he is looking on awe-stricken, 
the scene shifters will come rushing down upon him 
with a new delusion, trampling on his toes in a manner 
that suggests in a most potential way his superfluity in 
that particular place, and pushing him aside without the 
merest apology, and perhaps with no other remark than 
a fragment of fervent profanity, as if he were a wretched 
street Arab in that mimic world in which the scene 
shifter and the captain of the " supers " play such very 
important parts. People come out of every imagina- 
ble place all around him. There seem to be doors 
everywhere, — in the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and 
even in space; and as the "vasty deep " and the 
rest of the surroundings give up their dwellers, the in- 
truder receives fresh jolts and thrusts, and possibly 
additional donations of profanity. This, of course, 
applies only to the male apparitions that overwhelm 
the strange visitor to the new world behind the scenes. 
The female portion of that illusory sphere have noth- 
ing to say to him except with their eyes, which very 
forcibly inquire the meaning of his presence there. 

If a person WT>uld like to understand how awfully 
strange and lonely it will be for the last individual left 
alive upon earth, he need only pay a first visit to the 
stage of a theatre where he is not acquainted with any 
of the actors or actresses, and has not even the pleasure 
of knowing one of the minor attaches. Any attempt to 
form an acquaintance is promptly and unmistakably 
repelled, and all the poor unfortunate has to do is to 
move up where he is out of everybody's way, and 
he can look on and wonder to his heart's content. As 
he inspects his surroundings and has his attention called 



tt 



A PRELIMINARY PEEP. 



to the actions of the people whose business it is to 
place the stage in shape for an act or scene of a play, 
he will readily comprehend the meaning of forming a 
world out of chaos. If they are getting ready the 




LOTTA. 



balcony scene for " Romeo and Juliet," wing pieces are 
pushed out to represent trees and the side of the house 
of the Capulets — and what a house it usually is, too, 



A PRELIMINARY PEEP. 



23 



for such elegant people ! The front of the house is 
rapidly placed in position between two wings, the bal- 
cony is quickly nailed on, and with the aid of a rude 
scaffolding behind the scene and a ladder, the fair Juliet 
mounts, and, feeling her way carefully, at last steps out 
upon the frail structure to tell the sweet moon her love 
for Romeo. The whole thing looks ridiculous. Even the 
stately daughter of the Capulets has not beauty or skill 
enough to remove the absurdity from the scene which has 
the appearance of being, and is in reality nothing else 
than wood and canvas freely splashed with paint of 
the proper colors. A painted box represents a stone ; 
a green carpet passes for grass ; the beautiful bric-a- 
brac that opens the eyes of the aesthetic people in the 
audience is only brown paper hurriedly daubed by the 
scene painter's apprentice; the wall of the Capulets' 
garden is a very frail canvas concern, and the floral 
attributes are frauds of the deepest dye from the scenic 
artist's long table of colors. The whole picture is 
simple, but unintelligible to the looker-on for the first 
time, and as he vanishes through the door he laughs 
heartily at the very thin disguise tragedy and comedy 
are required to put on to delude and please the public. 
Let him return to the theatre in the morning and 
view its mysteries shorn of the dazzle and splendor 
that the night brings. He will be more astonished 
still. The place is usually as dark as a dungeon, there 
being something peculiar in the construction of the- 
atres which makes them bright at night and dismal 
during daylight. If a stray slant of light falls any- 
where upon the stage it will be rudely mocked by the 
bits of burning candle by the aid of which the stage 
carpenter is at work right in the very spot where, 
twelve hours before, Romeo and Juliet lived and died 
for each other in such a lamentably pathetic way that 



24 A PRELIMINARY PEEP. 

the audience shed tears, and only gave the lachrymal 
rainstorm a rest at intervals long enough to shower 
the star with applause. The stage carpenter's assist- 
ant is there too, the machinist, the scene painters, the 
men who have charge of the company's baggage, the 
property man, and others. They fill the scene in a 
lugubrious and wholly uninteresting wa}^, — all are at 
work, and as heedless of the attendance of strangers as 
the actors and stage hands of the night before had 
been. The scenes have lost their color — such as are 
left, and this mimic world that had its admiring and 
aspiring hundreds is as bare and desert -like as a bald 
head after its owner has been using hair restoratives 
for about six months. It has neither shape nor any 
suggestion of its whilom beauty and attractiveness. 
The green-room may be explored, and the dressing- 
rooms, but they will reveal nothing ; their former oc- 
cupants are probably still abed, and unless there is to 
be a rehearsal they will not be seen around again until 
7 o'clock at night. He must not be too searching in 
his explorations or the attention of the attaches will be 
attracted, and the conversation that will follow may 
not be the most pleasant in the world to him. Moving 
down the stairs that lead to the space under the stage, 
the explorer will find it darker and more dungeon-like 
still, and even if it were light nothing could be seen 
but the steam boiler, for heating and power purposes, 
the ventilating apparatus, the numerous trap-door 
openings and the posts about them, with a few other 
accessories that are hardly worth mentioning. Again 
he will be forced to confess that everything is very 
simple, but he cannot understand any part of it, and 
again he goes away with a laugh on his lips and mer- 
riment in his heart because the people are so easily 



A PRELIMINARY PEEP. 25 

pleased, and theatrical managers find it so easy to 
entertain them. 

A visit to the dressing-tent of the circus will be 
equally barren of appreciable results. He can see the 
dazzling costumes, the shapely limbs of the females, 
the gaily-caparisoned steeds, the red gold-laced coats 
of the supers, and a chaotic heaping up of a number 
of indescribable articles, but behind the canvas screen 
that divides the tent lie secrets that he must not 
attempt to penetrate, for there are the lives, the lies 
and the fascinations of the performers. There, awk- 
ward limbs receive their roundly shaping, and old age, 
by a magic touch with the elixir of the " make-up " 
box, puts on the masquerading bloom of youth. The 
same might, to some extent, be said of the dressing- 
rooms of the theatre, only the application could not 
be as wide or general as in the circus profession, for 
the lives these people lead soon lay waste their beauty 
if they happen to be young, and crowd senility upon 
them long before the usual time. Their work is always 
hard, their surroundings are of the very worst kind, 
they grow up in an atmosphere of fraud, and they 
necessarily learn early the arts of deception whereby 
their employers make fame and fortune. But I have 
taken a stranger into the dressing-tent, and I must not 
abuse the hospitality of the place by exposing its sins 
in his presence. The stranger is introduced all around, 
shakes hands with everybody, even the premiere 
equestrienne, or, perhaps, the charming and daring- 
little lady who is twice daily shot out of a cannon, and 
besides makes two headlong dives a day from the dome 
of the tent into the net spread beneath. All are glad 
to see him, and he is surprised to find that the two 
Indians who juggle fire-brands and do other feats not 
at all consistent with the traditions of the aborigines, 



26 A PRELIMINARY PEEP. 

have not sufficient savage blood in their veins to make 
respectable cigar store signs, but are base counterfeits 
of the noble red man, applications of chocolate and 
vermilion to their faces, and the usual accompaniment 
of black hair, feathers, and deerskin clothing having 
bestowed upon them all the air of the child of the 
forest that they possessed. As the band sounds the 
music for the riding act the equestrienne's horse 
dashes tamely into the ring, and the gentlemanly 
agent of the show pushes the visitor out to have him 
" look at an act that beats anything of the kind in the 
world." 

As in the material or mechanical features of the 
show there are mysteries of the most interesting and 
instructive kind, so, too, the personal features of the 
realm of entertainment — the great world of amuse- 
ment — contain much that will not only surprise, but 
will tickle the unsophisticated. By lifting the veil the 
least bit, the reader can have a peep at the most at- 
tractive of the events and incidents that go to .make 
the romantic career of an actor or actress. There are 
various little things that look simple and innocent 
enough when they appear in the shape of a newspaper 
paragraph that contain a world of meaning to the ini- 
tiated. There are methods of getting and keeping 
players before the public of which the latter know no 
more than they do of the wife of the man in the moon. 
There are flagrant scandals mingling with the innocent 
revels of these masquerading people, and there are, 
too, some of the saintliest, sweetest, manliest and 
womanliest of individuals in a profession that almost 
the entire world looks upon with the wildest suspicion, 
and whose bright names and fair fames can never be 
tarnished by the iniquitous doings of persons lower 
and less respectable in character. In all that will be 



A PRELIMINARY PEEP. 27 

written here regarding the dark side of theatrical life, 
I wish it distinctly understood that there is no desire 
or intention to cast even the slightest reflection upon 
the honored and respected members of a grand pro- 
fession, and wherever a seemingly sweeping and un- 
complimentary statement may be made, the reader 
will be kind enough to add a saving clause in favor of 
all those who do not deserve such condemnation. In 
the concert saloon, the variety den, the boys' theatre, 
and the numerous other dives in which vice parades 
boldly and nakedly, will be found ample field for 
trenchant and graphic writing. These pits of infamy 
flourish everywhere, and are as freely patronized as 
the charms of their female attractions are freely dis- 
played ; the girls in short dresses, in gleaming tights, 
with padded bust and cotton-rounded limbs, their se- 
ductive wiles, their beer-thirstiness, their reckless 
familiarity with male friends and strangers, alike from 
the beardless boy of fourteen to the bald and wither- 
ing roue, the ample freedom with which they throw 
themselves into the arms of victims and give them- 
selves up to the most outrageous revels ; the female 
minstrel gang and the break-o'-day girls, who supple- 
ment their sins on the stage with subsequent and even 
more surprising iniquity in the hop or dance that fol- 
lows the show, — all these phases of the lower strata 
of theatrical life, as being more productive of interest- 
ing secrets of a so-called stage, must be touched upon, 
that the reader may be able to contrast the extremes 
of the amusement world, and understand that in mimic 
as well as real life, there are abject misery and squalid 
sinfulness while, above all, shines the grand and stain- 
less character of the noble and pure-minded people 
who bring genius and virtue to the profession of 
which they are bright, shining ornaments. 



*;• 



CHAPTER II. 



A THEATRE OF SHAKESPEARE S DAY. 

If some of the old Greek dramatists could shake to- 
gether their ashes and assume life, they would open 
their ancient eyes to look upon the beauty, comfort, 
and charming symmetry of the first-class theatre of 
the present day. The ancients were at first obliged 
to put up with representations given upon rude carts ; 
afterwards stone theatres were constructed, with the 
performers placed in a pit in the middle space, but no 
such effort at decoration, or to provide for the con- 
venience of spectators, was to be seen as is to be found 
everywhere now. The plays, too, while they may 
have been delightful to our Hellenic predecessors, 
would hardly draw a corporal's guard at the present 
time, when spectacular melodrama is all the rage, 
and the only chorus the average theatre-goer cares to 
see is the aggregation of pretty girls in entrancing 
tights, and with the utmost scantiness of clothes to 
hide their personal charms, who sing the concerted 
music in comic opera. This is the kind of chorus that 
sends a thrill of ecstacy through the heart, and around 
the resplendent dome of thought of the much-maligned 
modern bald-head. The strophe and anti-strophe of 
the ancient drama would set the nineteenth century 
citizen crazy as a wild man of Borneo. The ancient 
drama was gradually replaced by the ecclesiastical 
drama, — the mystery or miracle play, — an example of 

(28) 



A THEATRE OF SHAKESPEARE' S DAY. 29 

which remains to us in the celebrated " Passion 
Play," performed at Obarammergan at stated intervals, 
and over the projected production of which, in this 
country, there was so much trouble that the play was 
never produced. In this style of drama, events in the 
life of the Savior, or the great mysteries of the church, 
were the topics dealt with by the saintly play-wright, 
and the actors personated characters ranging from 
the Devil up through the various grades of saintliness 
and angelic beatification to God Almighty himself. 
The miracle play flourished during the middle ages, 
and survived down almost to the Elizabethan period, 
when Shakespeare appeared upon the scene ; and with 
his advent there came a revolution, the outgrowth of 
which is the present perfect and beautiful theatre. 
The change in the style of plays brought a change in 
the style of places for their representations, and while 
the Bard of Avon was making his reputation in 
the dramatic line, the Globe and Blackfriars were 
leading the way to advancement in the matter of the- 
atrical structures. They had performances on Sun- 
day in those olden times, and while good Christians 
were worshipping God in their sanctuaries, the unde- 
vout Britons of the "golden age" were worshipping 
Thespis in his. 

Let us drop back into a theatre of the Shakespearian 
epoch, some Sunday afternoon when the weather is 
fine, and you will not be compelled to stand bare- 
headed in the pit. Let us go to the Globe. It was 
situated on the Bankside. It was a wooden build- 
ing, of hexagonal shape, open to the sky, and 
partly thatched. To a little tower-like projection from 
the roof was fastened a staff of no inconsiderable 
height, from which always fluttered the flag of Eng- 
land. Windows were sparsely distributed here and 
there, on each side of the building, while over the door 



30 A THEATRE OF SHAKESPEARE 's DAY. 

was displayed the figure of Hercules bearing the globe 
upon his brawny shoulders. Whether the mythologi- 
cal giant came with his terrestrial burden to dedicate, 
in propria persona, this temple to the mightiest of the 
muses, or whether the whole thing was only a cunning 
contrivauce of some skilful artisan, embodying the 
conception of a clever play writer, history does not 
record. 

Whenever a play was to be enacted, the entrance to 
the Globe was always jammed with footboys, eager 
for a chance to hold a gentleman's horse, or loun<nn2f 
gallants, who collected to show themselves and to ogle 
the ladies as they entered. It was a lively spectacle, 
as stiff dames and ruffled noblemen, poor artisans and 
sleek gallants, wits and critics, footmen and laborers 
and ragged urchins stepped forward to pay the admit- 
tance fee of a shilling or a sixpence, or to make a re- 
spectful offer of their credit, which was usually most 
disrespectfully condemned as unlawful tender. It was 
a lively sight as gouty old gentlemen flourished huge 
batons over the scraggy heads of malicious boys who 
jostled them purposely ; as titled old dames in im- 
mense flaring petticoats endeavored to smooth their 
noble wrinkles, and look mincing and modest under 
the impertinent gaze of the bedizened fops, and as the 
fops themselves twisted and bent and bowed and 
shook their powdered "wigs, twirled their glove-fingers, 
or turned out their toes fastidiously, at the imminent 
risk of dislocating their tarsals. 

But let us enter with the crowd and observe the in- 
ternal economy of the theatre, and the character of 
the performance. Though externally hexagonal, the 
building within is circular in form. There is no roof, 
as before intimated, and the exhibitions occurring only 
in the summer and in pleasant weather, the air is 



A THEATRE OF SHAKESPEARE' S DAY. 31 

always serene and pure, and the audience requires no 
protection from storms or wind. In the centre of the 
enclosure is the pit, as in modern play-houses. Here, 
11 the understanding gentlemen of the ground," as 
Ben Jonson has it, revelled in the delights of the 
drama at sixpence a head ; the bosom of the earth 
their sole footstool, and the blue canopy of heaven 
their only shelter. The " great unwashed did congre- 
gate " upon this spot, sometimes in immense numbers, 
to luxuriate at once in Shakespeare and tobacco ; for 
be it known, the ancient theatres of London were to 
the working classes very much what its modern porter 
and beer shops are. They were places of resort where 
tradesmen and tradesmen's wives assembled to gossip 
and smoke and steep. 

Surrounding the pit upon all sides except where the 
stage completed the circle, were the boxes or rooms, as 
they were called. In these were assembled those who 
could lay claim to rank or wealth. They were fur- 
nished with wooden benches — a luxury of which the 
pit could never boast, and which was purchased for a 
shilling. It will be observed, from what has been said, 
that the internal arrangements of the ancient theatres 
were upon precisely the same plan as those of the 
modern. The cause of this identity of structure may 
be easily traced. As late as the reign of Henry VIII., 
it was customary to enact plays and pageants in the 
courts of inns. These were usually quadrangular in 
form, with balconies or piazzas projecting into the 
court, and corresponding with the stories of the build- 
ing. The stage was erected near the entrance-gate, 
and occupied one entire side of the quadrangle. The 
inn-yard thus formed the pit or parquette, for the ac- 
commodation of the " understanding gentlemen," 
while the balconies or rooms (rising above each other 



32 A THEATRE OF SHAKESPEARE' S DAY. 

in tiers varying with the number of stories) corre- 
sponded to the boxes. It was from this crude, origi- 
nal conception that the architects of Queen Elizabeth's 
reign fashioned the Globe and Blackfriars, and from 
thence has it come down to the present day. 

Directly in front of the pit was the stage, protected 
by a woollen curtain. Unlike modern " drops," it was 
divided in the middle, and suspended by rings from 
an iron rod. When the performance was about to 
commence it was drawn aside — opening from the 
middle ; the rolling up process is an achievment of 
some later mind. 

Hark ! Do you hear the gentle grating, the jin- 
Sflinor the rustlinsc of woollen? Without the slightest 
premonitory symptoms there has been a rupture of 
the curtain, and the mysteries it so securely hid are 
most unexpectedly revealed. Seated upon wooden 
stools or reclining upon the rushes with w*hich the 
stage is strewn, are a number of individuals com- 
posedly smoking long pipes, whom the unsophisti- 
cated might take for actors. Far from it ; they are 
the perpetual bane of actors — wits and gallants, who 
delight in nothing so much as in exhibiting themselves 
for the public to admire, or confusing the actors by 
their pleasantries and disturbing the progress of the 
play. 

Protruding from the further wall of the stage is a 
balcony, supported on wooden pillars, and flanked by 
a pair of boxes in which those who rejoiced in be- 
ing singular or who could not afford the full price of 
admission w^ere accommodated. The balcony was 
used by the actors. It served as the rostrum when a 
large company was to be addressed ; it was the throne 
of kings and princes, the grand judgment-seat of mighty 
umpires, and in cases of necessity was convenient as the 



A THEATRE OF SHAKESPEARE' S DAY. 33 

first-story window of an imaginary dwelling-house. 
For this latter purpose it was particularly useful in 
the garden scene between Romeo and Juliet. But 
while we have been delaying in description, the rushes 
upon the boards have rustled, the actors have made 
their appearance, and the business of the play has 
commenced. 

For the purpose of illustrating the manner in which 
performances were conducted, we select the " As You 
Like It," of Shakespeare, as being most familiar to the 
general reader, and also peculiarly adapted to our pur- 
pose. Orlando and Adam make their appearance, 
and a signboard nailed to one of the side entrance 
communicates the altogether unsuspected fact that we 
are gazing upon an orchard. We see nothing which 
in any way favors the agreeable illusion : there are 
the rushes, the smoking fops, the balcony and a maze 
of pine boards, but nothing that looks like trees. 
Still, let not these things move you to that degree 
of uncharitableness or presumption that you doubt 
whether there be an orchard ; does not the infallible 
board with its painted letters positively affirm, " This 
be an orchard? " Other dramatis personce soon enter, 
and the hypothetical orchard becomes the scene of a 
most animated and interesting colloquy — the assem- 
bled company receiving no intimation that the fruit 
trees are no more, until the curtain falls, or rather is 
drawn, upon the first act. 

When the woolen hangings are again separated, the 
imagination is no longer painfully strained to support 
the illusion of the apples, but the unerring board 
directs the wandering eye to the vast forests of Arden. 
Here Jaques makes his sublime forest meditations in 
an area of ten feet by twelve, enclosed in rough pine 
boards ; his enthusiasm, considerably damped by the 



34 A THEATRE OF SHAKESPEARE' S DAY. 

provoking witticisms of critics and gallants, and his 
utterances choked by the volumes of tobacco smoke 
which roll in lazy, suffocating clouds toward the ceil- 
ing from a score of pipes. The affectionate ditties of 
Orlando are nailed to visionary trees, and he makes 
passionate love to the fair Rosalind amid fumes which 
strangle tender phrases, and convert sighings into pul- 
monary symptoms of a different character. 

It should here be observed by way of explanation, 
that Rosalind, when personated in Elizabeth's time, 
was fair only by courtesy ; for female parts were en- 
acted during her reign, and indeed, during many sub- 
sequent reigns, by boys or young men. There is an 
anecdote related of Charles II., which is a matter of 
history, and illustrates this point very well. It is 
said that on one occasion, visiting the theatre at the 
bringing out of a new play, by some great author, 
he became impatient at the unusual delay in drawing 
asunder the curtain. The royal wrath soon became 
extreme, and it was essential to the prospects of the 
" management " that it should be appeased. Accord- 
ingly, when the vials of imperial indignation were 
about to be emptied promiscuously upon the assembly, 
when the storm was just about to burst, a messenger 
from the green-room informed his majesty that the 
fair heroine had not finished shaving, — and the tem- 
pest immediately subsided. At each successive act 
new boards with fresh inscriptions inform us of the 
situation of the performers. The saloons of the duke's 
palace and the cottage of the peasant — scenes in 
doors and scenes out of doors — are precisely the 
same, with the exception of the invariable and ever- 
changino; signboard. 

c o o 

But there is one novelty, one new feature in the 
representation as the play progresses. It will be 






A THEATRE OF SHAKESPEARE' S DAY. 35 

recollected that the balcony was mentioned as furnish- 
ing a throne for princes, and a judgment-seat for dis- 
pensers of justice. During the wrestling contest 
between Charles and Orlando, this most serviceable 
commodity comes into requisition. Here sits the 
" duke " as umpire of the combat and general of the 
troops and retainers who stand on guard below. It 
is quite refreshing to hear his stentorian voice issuing 
from so unusual a quarter — it furnishes quite an 
agreeable relief to the tedious monotony of insipid 
dialogue going on anions; the rushes below. 

The play, however, proceeds rather sluggishly from 
the utter meagreness and insufficiency of the " scenery, 
machinery and decorations," so indispensable to the 
attractiveness of theatrical exhibitions. The trades- 
men in the pit turn their backs to the stage and their 
eyes to the skies, as they clasp affectionately the 
almost exhausted flagon, and pour into their thirsty 
throats the residue of half a dozen potations. The 
crimpled dames in the boxes relax their majestic 
stiffness, and relapse somnolent into the arms of the 
gouty old gentlemen, their husbands. The wits and 
"clever" men upon the stage grow more boisterous 
in their pleasantries, and fumigate more zealously as 
they pelt the unfortunate actors with rushes, or trip 
them as they " exeunt." To the vulgar crowd the 
only attractions which the performance offers, are the 
brilliant dresses of the actors and the vestige of a plot 
which the personation enables them to glean. As a 
general thing, however, the stage now receives hardly 
any attention. Pipes, tankards, and gossip are the 
order of the day, and everybody is glad when Orlando 
succeeds in obtaining his hereditary rights, wins the 
hand of the beautiful Rosalind, is dismissed in happi- 



36 A THEATRE OF SHAKESPEARE' S DAY. 

ness, and the woollen screen slips along its iron rod 
for the last time. 

Such was the style of dramatic exhibitions in the 
Elizabethan era. The stage was totally devoid of all 
scenic appendages calculated to produce the illusion 
necessary to add interest and intelligence to the plot. 
Rocks and trees, palaces and hamlets, places of fes- 
tivity and scenes of shipwreck, all existed merely in 
the imagination, with neither properties nor scenery 
to aid in the deception. 






CHAPTER III. 



THE AMERICAN THEATRE. 



Good-natured, rosy-cheeked, cheerful little Davy 
Garrick, as Dr. Johnson called the tragedian, was in 
the zenith of his glory at the Drury Lane, London, 
about the middle of the last century, and Goodman's 
Fields, which had cradled the wonderful actor, was in 
its decline. It declined so rapidly after Garrick 
deserted it that its manager, Wm. Hallam, failed in 
1750, and the theatre was closed. Hallam at once 
turned his thoughts toward America as a field in which 
his fortune might be replenished, — English actors and 
managers still look upon this country as an El 
Dorado, — and so he consulted with his brother Lewis 
Hallam, a comedian, and the two came to the conclu- 
sion to organize a company and run the risk of being 
scalped by what they considered the liberal but blood- 
thirsty tomahawk-wielding citizens of the New World. 
They got a company together, twenty-four stock plays, 
many of them Shakespearian, were selected, with 
eight farces and a single pantomime," The Harlequin 
Collector, or The Miller Deceived." Wm. Hallam 
and his brother were to share the profits of the ven- 
ture, and the former was to remain at home while the 
latter managed the company and threw in his services 
as first low comedian, his wife and children also taking 
parts in the performances. 

Under the direction of Lewis the company, with 

(37) 



38 THE AMERICAN THEATRE. 

some scenery, costumes, and all the usual stage acces- 
sories, set sail on board the Charming Sally in 1752. 
During the voyage when the weather permitted, the 
company rehearsed their pkvys on the quarter-deck 
of the vessel, having the crew and officers for their 
audience, and receiving from them many manifesta- 
tions of the delio'ht which their histrionic efforts 
brought to the Jack Tars' hearts. They landed at Wil- 
liamsburg, then the capital of Virginia, and the mana- 
ger after a diligent search found a store-house on 
the outskirts of the town, which he thought would 
suit his purpose. This he leased and metamorphosed 
into a theatre with pit, gallery, and boxes, and having 
the establishment ready on September 5, 1752, on that 
day the first performance ever given in America by 
a regular company of comedians, was given to a pre- 
sumably large and delighted audience. As was the 
custom in those days, the bill was a double one, con- 
sisting of "The Merchant of Venice" and the farce 
" Lethe." The cast for " The Merchant of Venice" 
was as follows : Bassanio, Mr. Rigby ; Antonio, Mr. 
Clarkson ; Gratiano, Mr. Singleton ; Salanio and 
Duke, Mr. Herbert ; Salarino and Gobbs, Mr. Wjg- 
nel ; Launcelot and Tubal, Mr. Hallam ; Shylock, Mr. 
Malone ; Servant to Portia, Master Lewis Hallam (be- 
ing his first appearance on any stage) ; Nerissa, Miss 
Palmer; Jesica (her first appearance on any stage), 
Miss Hallam ; Portia, Mrs. Hallam. The cast for 
" Lethe " was as follows (the Tailor having been cut 
out, and the part of Lord Chalkston not having been 
written into the farce at the t-ime the Hallam company 
left England): Fsop, Mr, Clarkson; Old Man, Mr. 
Malone ; Fine Gentleman, Mr. Singleton ; French- 
man, Mr. Rigby ; Charon, Mr. Herbert ; Mercury, 
Mr. Adcock ; Drunken Man and Tattoo, Mr. Hallam ; 



THE AMERICAN THEATRE. 39 

John, Mr. Wignel ; Mrs. Tattoo, Miss Palmer ; Fine 
Lady, Mrs. Hall am. 

The Williamsburg theatre was a very rude structure, 
and so near the woods that the manager could, as he 
often did, stand in the back door of the building and 
shoot pigeons for his dinner. Still the company re- 
mained here for a long time and met with much sucess. 
The house was finally destroyed by fire and the company 
removed to Annapolis, where a substantial building 
was converted to their use and where they remained 
with fortune favoring them until they got ready to go 
to New York. This they did in 1753, opening a 
theatre in the metropolis on September 17th, that on 
Nassau Street, in a building afterwards occupied by 
the old Dutch Church. The bill for the first night was 
" The Conscious Lovers" and the ballad-farce " Damon 
and Phillida. ' ' But three performances were given each 
week — on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays — and 
this continued to be the rule up to the beginning of 
the present century. The price of admission was 
eight shillings to the boxes, six shillings to the pit and 
three shillings to the gallery. This was on the first 
night, but the second night the prices were lowered to 
six shillings, five shillings, and three shillings for boxes, 
pit, and gallery respectively, and by the middle of Octo- 
ber a fourth reduction was made, so that admission to 
the pit could be had for four shillings and to the gallery 
for two shillings. The performance began at six o'clock, 
and on the bill for the opening night appears 
a request that ladies and gentlemen will come 
to the theatre in time, and a statement that nothing 
under the full price will be taken during the en- 
tire performance. This seems to be a departure from 
the custom of the mother country, where half price 
was received for admission after the third act. The 
Nassau Street theatre was closed on the evening of 



•10 THE AMERICAN THEATRE. 

March 18, 1754, with " The Beggars' Opera" and 
-The Devil to Pay." 

While the company was still in New York, Manager 
Hal lam was endeavoring to come to terms with the 
Quakers of Philadelphia, who strenuously objected to 
having players in their midst, or to allowing stage repre- 
sentations in their city. Mr. Malone, a member of the 
company, was at length sent on to the Quaker City, as 
Hallam's ambassador, and after considerable trouble 
succeeded in obtaining Gov. Hamilton's permission to 
present twenty-four plays and their attendant farces 
provided there was nothing indecent or immoral in 
them. In April, 1754 the company gave its first per- 
formance in Philadelphia, playing the tragedy of " The 
Fair Penitent, " and the farce, " Miss in Her Teens." 
The building occupied by the actors is designated by 
William Dunlap, the historian of the early American 
theatre, as " the store-house of a Mr. Plumstead, " and 
was situated " on the corner of the first alley above Pine 
Street." After the twenty-four performances had 
been given by "authority of his excellency," Gov. 
Hamilton, the players were allowed to add six more 
nights, after which they returned to New York. Here 
they erected a theatre on Cruger's wharf, between 
Old Slip and Coffee House Slip, and prospered. 

Boston did not have a theatre until 1792, and then 
got its first place of amusement only because Wignell 
and three other members of Hallam's company, for 
some reason or other, seceded from it. The seceders 
brought to their standard some money men of the Hub, 
a building was erected, and on August 16, 1792, the 
first show was given ; feats on the tight rope and acro- 
batic and other artists contributing to the entertainment. 
Five years later New York had two theatres, one on 
the Johns, and the other on Greenwich Street, and when 
the nineteenth century began, amusements were in a 



THE AMERICAN THEATRE. 41 

flourishing: condition in all the lanre cities of the conn- 
try, and the theatre had taken firm root and gave full 
promise of its present prosperity in the New World. 

They were a queer band, these early strollers on 
American soil. It reads like a romance to follow them 
through the history of their early struggles, and to 
scrutinize the personal peculiarties of the individuals 
who composed the company. One of them — I forget 
which at the present moment — was an imaginative 
fellow given up to all sorts of schemes and inventions, 
and published far and wide the announcement that he 
had discovered a process of manufacturing salt from 
sea water. A member of one of the earliest orches- 
tras — a short time after Hallam had ceased furnishing 
music to his audience with " one Mr. Pelham and his 
harpischord " or the single fiddle of a Mr. Hewlett — 
had been a Catholic priest in Switzerland, and had 
suffered the tortures of the Inquisition. He told his 
story to his manager one day and it was really touch- 
ing. His mother, he said, had dedicated him in his 
infancy to the priesthood. When he became old 
enough he was placed in a theological seminary, 
instructed and duly ordained. He was a priest when 
Spain went to war against France. His canton raised 
a regiment, and the priest being made its chaplain ac- 
companied it to Madrid. In Madrid he for the first 
time learned to love. He met in the street a hand- 
some Spanish lady who won his heart and lit the fire 
of passion in his frame. He became acquainted with 
her, and ascertained that the lady reciprocated his af- 
fection. There were many moments of stolen pleasure, 
many sighs and vows, until they finally agreed to flee 
together to America. The day and hour were 
agreed upon, and the lovers were in readiness, when a 
strong hand was laid upon the recreant priest's shoulder 
and he was thrown into prison. He realized his awful 



42 THK AMERICAN THEATRE. 

position at once, knowing that he was in the power of 
that monster, the Inquisition. For weeks he remained 
chained to the floor of his cell. Once he was led out to 
execution, but by some miracle or accident, was saved. 
At last, having suffered severely, he was put to the tor- 
ture, and weak, dying, and distracted was led to the 
gate of his prison, thrust out into the street, and 
warned as he valued his life to leave Madrid within ten 
days. It is needless to say he did so, and never learned 
or saw anything more of his Spanish sweetheart. 

From the rude and uncomfortable theatre of a century 
ago, with dressing-rooms under the stage, and but a 
single fiddle or harpsichord player for the orchestra, 
with poorly lighted and illy ventilated auditoriums, 
with meagre scenery and ragged wardrobes — from the 
primitive theatre of the New World has grown the mag- 
nificent, symmetrical, and elegantly appointed houses 
of amusement of the present day — structures beauti- 
fully and chastely ornamented in their exteriors, while 
their interiors have received the most delicate touches 
of the artist's brush and the most careful attention 
from the upholsterer — beautiful in color and drapery, 
rich in furniture, and the very perfection of architec- 
tural design. Our stages are revelations of dramatic 
completeness, sometimes presenting scenic pictures 
that challenge nature itself in their attractiveness, and 
at all times surrounding the actors of a play with ac- 
cessories gorgeous and extensive enough to mystify as 
well as delight nine out of every ten patrons of the 
theatre. The manner in which these extraordinary 
and pleasing illusions are produced is one of the great 
secrets of the stage, and when the mechanism em- 
ployed is explained the reader will be surprised to learn 
how simple and almost undisguised are the methods 
whereby the people behind the scenes work and multi- 
ply wonders. 



CHAPTER IV. 

AT THE STAGE-DOOR. 

The patrons of the theatre must all find their way 
into the house through the front doors ; only the priv- 
ileged few are allowed access to the mysteries and 
wonders of the stage through the back door. Here 
stands a gentleman, generally of repulsive mien and 
unattractive manners, whose special business it is to 
see that nobody, not entitled to do so, penetrates the 
sacred precincts, and who learns at once to distinguish 
between the people who come prying around his baili- 
wick merely for curiosity, and those who are there to 
"mash ' ' a susceptible ballet girl or perhaps an indiscreet 
member of the company. Those who are led to the 
stage-door by curiosity are numerous and they are all 
promptly repulsed ; and the " mashers " who stand at 
the stage-door after the performance is over, must get 
into the good graces of the door-keeper, and retain his 
friendship if they desire the course of true love to run 
smoother than the old adage says it runs. 

In the large theatres of Eastern cities the cerberus 
who guards the stage entrance generally has a little 
sentry box just inside the door, with a window cut in 
it, a stove placed inside in cold weather, a number of 
pigeon-holes for letters, and indeed all modern con- 
veniences, as the saying goes. Here he sits and 
smokes, hailing everybody who passes in and saying a 
kind or snarling word to all who pass out. If the mail 

(43) 



44 AT THE STAGE-DOOR. 

has brought a letter for any member of the company, 
or a " masher " has sent one of the girls a dainty lit- 
tle note expressive of the sentiment that is swelling in 
his twenty-six-inch bosom, the cerberus will have it, 
and will hand it out to the person for whom it is 
intended with an appropriate and not always compli- 
mentary remark about it. Sometimes this guardian 
of the theatric arcana will take advantage of his posi- 
tion to tj^rranize over the ballet girls and other subor- 
dinates of a company, and will rule in his autocratic 
way to his own pecuniary and other profit. In the 
East he is made a kind of time-keeper, notes when 
the performers appear for duty and when they are 
absent, besides otherwise making himself serviceable 
to the management and careful of the interests of his 
house. 

A story is told about one of them — I think his 
name was Bulkhead — who was employed at a theatre 
where the ballet was large, and the girls paid very 
liberal tribute to him. They gave him silk handker- 
chiefs of the prettiest and most expensive kind to wipe 
his fantastic mug on ; they paid for innumerable hot 
drinks with which he rounded out the waist of his 
pantaloons ; they dropped cigars into his always out- 
stretched paw, and otherwise drained their own 
resources to make Mr. Bulkhead as happy and com- 
fortable as possible. He, at first, took whatever was 
offered, but soon grew bold, and demanded fifty cents 
each of their little five dollars a week, every salary 
day. The girls made up their minds not to accede to 
this demand, which they deemed unjust and exorbitant ; 
they not only positively refused to give Bulkhead any 
money, but would give him nothing else, not even a 
two-cent cigar. As a result, about one-half of the girls 
forfeited a portion of their salaries next pay-day. This 



AT THE STAGE-DOOR. 45 

aroused all the fury there was in the entire ballet, and 
when they found out, too, that Bulkhead had driven 
away their male admirers they were as wild as so many 
hyenas. It did not take long for them to hit upon a 
means of wreaking vengeance upon the heartless and 
unscrupulous door-keeper. They clubbed together 
what change they had and got Bulkhead boiling 
drunk ; by the time the show was over on that (to him) 
memorable night he did not know which way to look for 
Sunday. After the final curtain had fallen and the 
lights were dimmed, Bulkhead sat at the door on his stool 
swaying like an unsteady church-steeple and snoring 
like an engine when its boiler is nearly empty. The 
girls picked him up and carried him into a remote 
corner of the stage, where they piled a lot of old 
scenery around him after tying his hands and feet 
securely. Then they got red and blue fire ready, al- 
most under his cherry red and panting nose ; one of 
the girls took her position at the thunder drum ; an- 
other had hold of the rain wheel ; another was at the 
wind machine ; a fourth got a big brass horn out of the 
music room and a fifth got the bass drum ; the remain- 
der stood ready to lend assistance with their hands and 
throats. At a given signal the thunder rolled louldly, 
the wind whistled vigorusly, the rain came down in tor- 
rents, the brass horn moaned piteously, the bass drum 
was beaten unmercifully, and pans of burning blue 
and red fire were poked through crevices in the piled- 
up machinery right under the drunken door-keeper's 
nostrils, while all the girls shouted at the tops of their 
voices and clapped as enthusiastically as if they were 
applauding a favorite. Bulkhead after opening his eyes 
and having his ears assailed by the din, shouted wildly 
for assistance and mercy and all kinds of things ; but 
he got neither assistance nor mercy. The racket con- 

Seep. 18. 



46 AT THE STAGE-DOOR. 

tinned for nearly ten minutes when quiet and darkness 
were restored, and the girls quietly stole away leaving 
Bulkhead alone in his agony under the pile of scenery, 
where he was found b}^ the stage carpenter next morn- 
ing, a first-class, double-barrelled case of jim-jams. He 
is now in an insane asylum, and employs most of his 
time telling people that notwithstanding all Bob Inger- 
soll's buncombe and blarney there must be a hereafter, 
for he has himself been through the sunstroke sec- 
tion of it. 

The ballet girls of another theatre played an equally 
effective and amusing trick upon an obnoxious scene 
painter. The artist had been in the habit of painting 
posts, doorsteps, etc., in the neighborhood of the 
stage-door in colors that were not readily perceptible, 
and when the young ladies' " mashes" came around 
after the performance to wait for them to dress, they 
innocently sat down upon or leaned against the fresh 
paint and ruined their clothes. The scene painter and 
his friend were always in the neighborhood to raise a 
laugh when the disaster was made known, and the re- 
sult was that the gay young men would come 
near the stage-door no more, and that the sweetly 
susceptible creature known as the ballet girl was 
obliged to go home alone, supperless. Well, one day 
the girls found the artist asleep against his paint-table 
with a half emptied pitcher of beer by his side. This 
was their opportunity. One of the girls who was of a 
decorative Oscar- Wilde-like turn of mind got a small 
brush while another held the colors, and in ten minutes 
they had that man's face painted so that he would pass 
for a whole stock of scenery ; the tattooed Greek was 
a mere five-cent chromo alongside of him, and a Sioux 
Indian with forty pounds of war-paint on would be a 
ten-cent side-show beside a twelve-monster-shows-in- 



AT THE STAGE-DOOR. 



47 



one-under-a-single-canvas exhibition. In this elaborate 
but nndecorative condition the scene painter wandered 
off to a neighboring saloon, the wonder and merriment 
of all who saw him. He did not understand the cause 




DECORATING 



SCENE PAINTER. 



of the general stare and unusual laugh at him, until a 
too sensitive friend took him to a mirror and showed 
him his frescoed features. Profanity and gnashing of 



48 AT THE STAGE-DOOR. 

teeth followed, and the artist was prevented from going 
back to the theatre to murder ten or twelve people 
only by a thoughtful policeman who picked him up as 
he flew out through the door of the saloon, and carried 
him off to the calaboose. He was sorry when he got 
sober, and from that day to this has not attempted to 
paint the coat-tails of the ballet girls' lovers. 

A great many of these lovers, as they are designated, 
are bold and heartless wretches, who have in some 
way or other obtained an introduction to or scraped 
acquaintance with the sometimes fair young creatures 
who fill in the crevices and chinks of a play, or air 
their limbs in the labyrinths of a march, or shake them 
in some strange and fascinating dance. They look upon 
the ballet girl, whether she be a dancer or merely be- 
low the line of utility, as legitimate prey, and without 
the slightest scruple will waylay or spread a net to 
catch her in some quiet but successful manner. They 
forget that many girls enter the theatre with the in- 
tention of making honorable and honest livings ; that 
they prize their virtue as highly as the most respected 
young lady who moves in the topmost circles of the 
best society, and that the theatrical profession is only 
misrepresented by the men and women who give 
themselves up to debauchery, and allow their passions 
to run riot to such an extent that they win notoriety 
of the most unsavory and unenviable kind. It is only 
because the stage is besieged by so many scoundrels 
and villains who have either bought or begged the 
privileges of the back door that the profession is dan- 
gerous to young and innocent girlhood. The stage 
itself is pure, and could be kept so, if these hangers-on 
were only done away with and the youthful student 
and aspirant for histrionic honors were allowed to pur- 
sue her vocation unassailed by the handsome tempters 
who begin by flattery and after an usually easy con- 



quesi 
fallei 

St; 



AT THE STAGE-DOOR. 49 

quest, end the dream of love by rudely casting the 
en girl aside to make room for another victim. 
Stand here iu the shadow awhile. The performance 
is at an end, and the gentlemen who haunt the stage- 
door are beginning to assemble. There are probably 
a half dozen of them. They stand around sucking the 
heads of their canes and anxiously awaiting the ap- 
pearance of their inamoratas. A burlesque company 
has the theatre this week, and there are probably 
eighteen or twenty handsome young ladies in the com- 
bination. Nearly every one of them is a " masher," 
and can be depended upon to hit the centre of a weak 
male heart, with an arrow from her beaming eye, at 
one hundred yards. Some of them have received 
tender notes from the front of the house during the 
night, making appointments for a private supper at one 
of the free and easy restaurants ; others have met 
their gentlemen friends before and can depend upon 
them to wait at the stage-door every night. Those 
who send the notes during the performance are of what 
is classed as the ultra-cheeky kind. A man of this 
class will do anything to make the acquaintance of a 
ballet or chorus girl. I knew one, one night, to push 
a dozen different notes under the door of Erne Rous- 
seau's dressing-room, which opened into the parquette, 
and he would not desist until Samuel Colville, the 
manager, caused him to be dragged out of the theatre 
and given over to the police. Another gentleman of 
the same proclivities having failed to gain Alice Oates's 
attention when she was in Chicago, followed her to St. 
Louis, Cincinnati, and Louisville, and still being una- 
ble to effect a proper " mash," endeavored to intro- 
duce himself successfully and gain her favor forever by 
making her a present of a pair of fast horses. Alice 



50 AT THE STAGE-DOOR. 

very sensibly refused to accept the gift, and told the 
fond and foolish young man to go home to his mother. 
Many cases of this kind might be cited to show how 
easily the women who enter the profession, partly for 
the purpose of prostituting their art, find easy conquest 
among the hair-brained fellows who are only too will- 
ing to be captives and rarely try to break the fetters 
of roses with which they find themselves bound. But 
keep here in the shadow a while and watch the manoeu- 
vres of the " mashers." The stage-door opens and 
out comes a very modest little girl. She does not be- 
long to the combination playing at the house this week, 
but is a member of the regular ballet of the theatre, — 
one of the few poor creatures who are obliged to 
s:et into ridiculous costumes of enormous dresses or 
unpadded tights, to increase the throng of court-ladies, 
the number of pages, or add to the proportions of a 
crowd . She does not dress any better than a girl who 
finds employment in a factory. She is young, however, 
and stage-struck. She has gone into the profession, 
braving all its dangers and with a firm resolution to go 
unscathed through it, carrying with her a sincere love 
for art and a burning desire to attain eminence. 
But alas ! she has little talent, and absolutely no ge- 
nius. This can be seen and appreciated already, 
although she has not had two lines to speak since enter- 
ing the theatre. She has been in the employ of the 
house only since the beginning of the season. The 
< 'mashers" part to make room for her as with eyes 
cast down she trips along the street. Some of them 
say smart and pretty things, and some have the im- 
pudence to raise their hats and bid her good-evening. 
She pays no attention to them, however, and it is 
probably fortunate that the tall muscular gentleman in 
work-day clothes who has had a pass to the gallery or 



AT THK STAGE-DOOR. 51 

may not have been in the theatre at all, and who is 
waiting a block below to escort her home, does not 
know the petty insults that are put upon her or the 
snares that beset her path. Every night the big burly 
fellow waits for the modest little ballet girl to sec her 
home in safety. The girl does not tell them at home 
to what dangers she is exposed, and they never learn 
until sometime the fall comes, when a troupe of negro 
minstrels or a large comic opera chorus invade the 
house and lay siege to the hearts of all the females 
they find behind the scenes. 

Here come two laughing blondes through the stage 
door. The light falling upon their faces shows that 
although they try to appear light and cheery, there is 
weariness in their limbs and perhaps distress in their 
hearts. They select their male friends at once ; in- 
deed, the latter have been waiting for the gay bur- 
lesquers. 

" Charley dear, I didn't see you in front to-night," 
savs one. 

" Neither did I," says the other ; " but George was 
there. I could tell him by his red eyes and cherry 
nose." 

" Yes," responds Charley, "there was too much 
champagne in that last bottle, and I didn't care about 
getting out of bed until half an hour ago." 

"You had considerable of the juicy under your 
vest, last night," the first girl remarks ; and then there 
is a laugh, and Charley says he feels in a good humor 
for tackling more wine at that particular moment, and 
the quartette move off to a hack-stand, jump into an 
open carriage and with lots of laughter the party are 
driven away to some suburban garden w r ith wine-room 
attachment, or to some urban restaurant where wine 
may flow as freely as morality may fade away with the 



52 AT THE STAGE-DOOR. 

speeding hours, and the pleasure may last just as 
long as the restauranteur thinks he is being well paid 
for the privileges of his establishment. 

Another girl conies through the stage-door. She is 
probably twenty-four years of age, is tall, handsome, 
and most attractive in her manners. There is the 
least suspicion of the matron ill her appearance, that 
dignity of carriage that characterizes women after 
marriage being clearly defined in her motions. She 
knows somebody has been waiting for her, — a young- 
fellow as tall, handsome, and attractive as herself. He 
sees her at once as she conies out, and goes to meet 
her. Her footsteps are bent in his- direction also. As 
they come together she lays her hand upon his ex- 
tended arm, and says : - — 

" No, Fred, I cannot go to-night. Sister is sick at 
the hotel, and the baby has no one to take care of her. 
I must go home to my child." 

" Pshaw !" says Fred, " I had everything arranged 
for an elegant drive and a rattling supper." 

" I'm so sorry, Fred ;" the woman pleads, " but I 
can't go to-night. You will have to excuse me this 
once. You know it was daylight when we parted this 
morning." 

" I know," her friend insisted ; " but what's the use 
in worrying about the baby. She's propably asleep 
now and won't need your care. Come, go along." 

" No, I cannot. I will not to-night." But Fred 
continues to plead, asking the pleasure of her presence 
at a supper, just for a half hour and no more. Un- 
able to resist the warmth of his appeals, she at last 
consents, and it is safe to say, that once the evening s 
entertainment begins, morning breaks upon the sleepy 
babe and sick sister at the hotel before Fred and his 
companion are ready to part. 



AT THE STAGE-DOOR. 53 

I knew a friend — a dramatic writer — who stood at 
the back door one night and waited for a pair of pretty 
chorus singers. My friend had another friend with 
him — a prominent merchant. The two gay and giddy 
young girls, who were only foolish flirts, did not know 
that the gentlemen who had invited them to a midnight 
ride and a late supper were married. Indeed, they 
may not have cared. So when the opera of " Oli- 
vette " was over and the pair of chorus singers 
emerged at the back door of the stage and found the 
two gentlemen waiting patiently for them, the girls 
each gave over a bundle to her particular friend to 
have him carry in his pocket until such time as the 
quartette got ready to separate. The bundles each 
contained a pair of pink " symmetrical " — padded 
tights. The young ladies informed their friends of 
this fact, and cautioned them to be sure to return the 
bundles before leaving. Well, the night wore on joy- 
ously with wine and singing and the usual pleasures of 
a late drive. At last, at 3 a. m., the girls got ready 
to return to their hotel. They were driven thither, 
and the entire party having imbibed more wine than 
was necessary, soft and sweet adieus were so tenderly 
spoken that nobody thought about the two pairs of 
pink symmetrical. The gentlemen ordered the car- 
riage driver to speed homeward with them, and he did 
so. First the dramatic writer disembarked at the door 
of his residence, ran up stairs, pulled off his clothes, 
and was soon sound asleep. The merchant was soon 
at his own door, had settled with the driver and the car- 
riage had just rolled away when, as he was fumbling 
at the latch-key he thought of the pair of tights. 
With one bound he cleared the steps, and running 
into the street, shouted after the carriage. The driver 
heard him, stopped, and was given the pair of tights to 
take around to the chorus girl's hotel that day and a $5 



5 1 AT THE STAGE-DOOR. 

bill to pocket for the services. It was a narrow escape 
for the merchant. For the dramatic writer it was no 
escape at all. He was rudely awakened at ten o'clock 
in the morning, and the first sight that met his eyes 
was his infuriated wife holding the pair of pink tights 
bv the toes and stretching them out so that the sin of 
the husband stood revealed to him in all its fulness. 

" Where did these come from?" the exasperated 
wife shrieked, flaunting them before the husband's 
eyes. 

" Where did you get them?" He asked, trembling, 
and unable to think of any good excuse to make. 

"I got them in your coat pocket," his spouse 
shouted, piling up the evidence and agony in a way 
that was excruciating. 

"By jingo! is that so?" exclaimed the husband, 
coming suddenly to a sitting posture in bed, and bring-, 
ing his hands together vehemently. " Now, I'll bet 

$4 Charley ," giving the name of his merchant 

friend, put them there. He told me he had a pair that 
he was going to make a present of to one of the " Oli- 
vette" girls at the " 

Brilliant as this thought was, it did not satisfy the 
little lady. She kept up the argument all day, and 
that night paid a visit to the merchant's wife, where 
the affair got into such a tangle that the two husbands 
brought in a bachelor friend to shoulder the blame, 
and who made the excuse that the whole thino* was a 
trick put up by a few gentlemen (among them the 
bachelor was not) on the dramatic man and merchant 
to get' them into domestic trouble, as they had suc- 
ceeded in doing, beyond their most sanguine desires. 

And now that we have been long enough at the back 
door of the theatre, let us go home and come around 
to-morrow night to have a view of the plagues and an- 
noyances to be found before the foot-lights. 



CHAPTER V. 



BEFORE THE FOOT-LIGHTS. 



There are people who patronize the theatre who do 
not go there simply to see the play or to be pleased by 
the players, and whose interest in the stage is more 
than double discounted by the interest they manifest in 
and towards the audience. The "masher" makes it 
a market in which to display his fascinations and call 
upon the susceptible fraction of femininity to inspect 
and avail themselves ' of his heart-breaking and soul- 
wasting wares. Whether he modestly takes his stand 
in the rear of the auditorium, overcoat on arm and 
stovepipe hat gracefully poised upon the thumb of his 
left hand, while, with polished opera-glass, he sweeps 
the sea of variegated millinery and obtrusive-hued cos- 
metics, or bravely hangs up his charms to view on the 
front row of the dress circle, or prominently displays 
them in a proscenium box, he is ever the same offen- 
sive and shameless barber-aud-tailor-shop decoration, 
moved by a wild ambition to attract and hold feminine 
attention, and always attaining to a degree of notoriety 
among the masculine theatre-goers that keeps him 
overwhelmed with contempt, and causes him to be as 
readily recognized as if he had a tag tied to his back or 
spread across his vest front, declaring him to be a 
fisher after femininity. When the "masher" takes 
the shape of the young blood, whose short and tightly- 
fighting coat is matched by the shallowness of the 

(55) 



56 



BEFORE TIIF FOOT-LIGHTS. 



crown of his straight-brimmed hat, and whose eye- 
glasses straddle his nose as gracefully as his twenty- 
five-cent cane is carried 
in his hand, and this ir- 
resistible combination of 
attractions is thrust upon 
the audience from a box 
opening, the acme of the 
■^Ss, lady-killing art is reached 




and if all the world does 
not admire the effective 
tableau it must be be- 
cause all the world is 
unappreciative and the 
" masher" stands on an 
the "masher.' aesthetic plane to which 

the rest of mankind cannot hope to aspire. 

But the " masher " is only a fraction of the class of 
amusement patrons to which attention has been called 
in the opening sentence of this chapter. Apart from 
the people who deem it their duty to come tramping 
into the theatre while the performance is going on, 
and whose coming is followed by a triumphal flourish 
of banging seats, and the heaving footbeats of hurrv- 
ing ushers, to the intense disgust of all who care to 
hear the first act of the play, there are others who 
have a hundred ways of annoying an audience, and 
who make a very effectual use of their gifts in this 
direction. There is the member of the " profesh," — 
the gaseous advance agent, or the bloviate business 
manager, the actor " up a stump," or the "super" 
who has played the part of a silent but spectacular 
lictor with John McCullough or Tom Keene, and who 
sits in the rear of the house, but sufficiently for- 
ward to be distinctly heard by people in the dress 



BEFORE THE FOOT-LIGHTS. 57 

circle, criticising the mannerisms of the ladies or 
gentlemen on the stage and "guying" everybody 
in the cast from the star down to the frightened and 
stiff-kneed little ballet girl whom an inscrutable Provi- 
dence has allowed to wander in upon the scene occa- 
sionally, to say, " Yes, mum, "or " No, mum." The 
leisurely but loud professional who thus disports him- 
self must necessarily enjoy a large share of the 
audience's attention, and the more of this he attracts 
the more he is encouraged to be extravagant in his 
criticisms and unreserved in his elocution. He some- 
times must dispute the title to obstreperous obtrusive- 
ness with some liquor-laden auditor who has succeeded 
in passing the door-keeper only to find that the heat 
of the house has accelerated his inebriation and given 
freedom and license to his tongue until the " bouncer " 
lifts him out of his seat by the collar and deposits him in 
a reflective and emetic mood on the curbstone in front 
of the theatre. Then, too, a crowd of friends sometimes 
get together in the parquette, who begin a conversation 
before the first curtain rises and keep it going on in 
careless and annoying tones until the final flourish of 
the orchestra arrives with the dimming of the lights 
as the audience files out. But if the loud members of 
the " profesh," the interjective inebriate, and the crowd 
of communicative friends are not on hand to furnish di- 
version for the folks who are trying to follow what is 
going forward on the stage, there is one other never- 
failing source of distraction and annoyance — the giddy 
and gushing usher. It is safe to bet that just when the 
most pathetic passage of a play is reached, or the 
tragedian is singing smallest, a few ushers will throw T 
themselves hastily together in the lobby and hold a 
mass meeting long and loud enough to be taken for a 
November night political meeting, if there were only 



BEFORE THE FOOT-LTGHTS. 

a stake wagon and a few Chinese lanterns strewn 
around. Indeed, the usher seems to assume that he 
is a sort of safety-valve through which a disturbance 
must break out now and then to offset the quiet of the 
audience. If the usher isn't plying his fiendish pro- 
clivity, some bald-headed man in the parquette is sure 
to throw his skating rink over the back of the seat, and, 
with shinning brow turned up towards the sun-burner in 
the dome, mouth rounded out like the base of a cupola 
and nostrils working like a suction pump, his beauti- 
ful snore will rise above the wildest roar of the orches- 
tra and drown the mellifluous racket of the' big bass 
drum, until some friendly hand disturbs the dreamer, 
and the " or-g-g-g-g-g-g-g ! " that rushes up his nos- 
trils, down his'throat and out through his ears, is thus 
gently and perhaps only temporarily interrupted. The 
enthusiast — the man who is carried away by the spirit 
of the scene — is also a source of annoyance, and 
when he signifies from the balcony his willingness to 
take a hand in what is being enacted on the stage, 
damning the villian heartily, and, like the sailor of 
old, openly sympathizing with femininity in distress, 
he first becomes a target for the gallery boys' gutter- 
wit and finally a prey to the inexorable " bouncer," 
who roams around the upper tiers of every theatre and 
unceremoniously dumps disturbers down stairs. Last, 
but by no means least, in the distracting and disturb- 
ing features at theatrical performances is the pea- 
nut cruncher. He is the most cold-blooded and least 
excusable of all the annoyances with which amusement 
patrons are afflicted. He wraps his teeth around the 
roasted goober, utterly reckless of the distress he is 
stirring up in the bosoms of those around him, and he 
grinds and smacks and continues to crunch, stopping 
occasionally to charge his dental quartz-crusher anew, 



BEFORE THE FOOT-LIGHTS. 59 

and always beginning on the latest goober with the 
greatest ferocity, while he seems to make it go ten 
times further, as far as time and agony are concerned, 
than any of its predecessors. All the other disturb- 
ance consequent upon attending a play are petty, 
compared with peanut-crunching, and it is the opinion 
of the writer that a law should be passed at once, 
making it a felony for any banana-stand or hand-cart 
man to sell peanuts to citizens who are on their way 
to the theatre. If such a law were passed, and if it 
were not a dead letter, the people whose backbones 
feel as if they were being fondled by a circular saw 
every time they hear the rustling of a goober-shell, 
would flop right down an their knees and renew their 
confidence in the wisdom of Providence. 

The young men and the old men, too, who go out 
" between acts " to hold spirit seances with neighbor- 
ing bar-keepers, while the orchestra is playing a Strauss 
waltz or a medley of comic opera numbers for the 
solace of the lovely ladies they have left behind them, 
are a greater nuisance to the audience of a first-class 
theatre than one would imagine. In nine cases out of 
ten, the man who goes out to see another man, as the 
saying is, has his seat in the middle of a row, so that it 
is necessary for him to make trouble for ten or a 
dozen persons before he can reach the aisle. He 
tramples on ladies' dresses, comes into collision with 
their knees, and sends a thrill of pain to the utmost 
ends of the roots of every man's corn he treads on. 
The same thing is repeated on the w r ay back to his seat, 
and there are bitter mutterinos, a great deal of sub- 
dued or smothered profanity, and fierce, rebuking looks 
flash from beneath the beautiful bonnets of the females. 
It doesn't seem to affect the nuisance any, however, for 
he does the same thing over every act, and at each rep- 



60 BEFORE Tliu FOOT-LICHTS. 

etition increases to the damage he does and the com- 
motion he creates. Then, to make bad worse, he 
manages to surround himself with a distillery odor that 
assails feminine nostrils in a most offensive manner, and 
that will not suffer itself to be concealed or tempered 
by the chewing of coffee-grounds, cloves, or orange-peel. 
I witnessed the discomfiture of a young man of this 
kind, one night, and the scene was a very funny one. 
He occupied a seat in the orchestra, in the centre of a 
row of seats principally filled with ladies. As the cur- 
tain went down the young man determined to go over 
and have a look through the saloon opposite. Unwill- 
ing to incommode the ladies in the least, the young 
man, with Chesterfieldian grace, elevated a pedal ex- 
tremity over the back of his chair, with the intention 
of going out through the aisle behind. Unfortunately 
he stepped between the seat and the back, the movable 
seat flew up, and the thirsty young man was left as- 
tride of the chair in a decidedly uncomfortable posi- 
tion. By this time the gallery gods had marked him 
for their victim. They hooted, whistled, cat-called, 
and made slans; remarks about straddling: the " ragged 
edge," to his evident discomfiture. In vain he at- 
tempted to disengage his No. 10' s. The rest of the 
audience became interested, and opera-glasses w T ere 
directed toward the blushing young man. The 
feminine giggles in his neighborhood rendered him 
frantic ; laughter and uproar were becoming general, 
when a good-natured individual kindly assisted him to 
escape from his awkward position. Amid " thunders 
of applause" he disappeared. 

The ladies, too, sometimes contribute largely to the 
annoyance of an audience. They are, as everybody 
knows, inveterate talkers, and insist on saying almost 
as much during a performance as the players say. 



BEFORE THE FOOT-LIGHTS. 



61 



Their criticism of the toilets of friends and of stranff- 
ers also, is loud-sweeping and usually denunciatory, 
and they have a style of pillorying their victims in 
speech that is decidedly heartless, yet refreshing. But 
all the faults of loud and untamed talk mi^ht have 
been forgiven had they not introduced the tremendous 
h\<y hats which 
rise high above 
their heads and 
stick far out 
from their ears 
completely 
shutting off a 



view of the 
stage from the 
persons imme- 
diately in the ~^W ~^ 
rear. Strong 
men have shed THE BIG HAT - 

tears to find themselves conquered by these big hats ; 
they have tried to peep around them, and have stood 
tip-toed on their chairs to have a glance over the tops 
of the millinery structures, but in vain. The hats 
were too much for them. In a mild, aesthetic way the 
ladies' big hats rank among the greatest plagues that 
have ever visited the modern play-house. 

I was in the Grand Opera House at St. Louis, one 
evening, sitting in seat No. 3, row B, centre section, 
parquette circle. Before the play began two ladies, 
one dressed in black silk with a white satin jacket and 
black beaver hat, with long sweeping feather, and the 
other plainly dressed in black cashmere, with a " Sen- 
sation " hat and tassel on, came in aud took scats 1 
and 2 in row A, same section. Prior to settling down 
in their places, they looked inquiringly around the rear 




(52 BEFORE THE FOOT-LIGHTS. 

of the theatre, one remarking to the other as they 
plumped down in the chairs, " I suppose they haven't 
got here yet." Seats three and four adjoining them 
were vacant. The ladies had come unattended. 
After they had arranged themselves the lady with the 
beaver hat drew out a letter and held it up to the light 
so that the reporter could read it. It had a cut of one 
of the principal hotels at the top and was note-paper 
from that establishment. It said : — 

To Mamie and Sadie : Your note of to-day re- 
ceived. We like your style and enclose two seats for 
Grand Opera House to-night, where we hope to meet 
you both and make your acquaintance. 

Yours sincerely, George and Harry. 

Just as the orchestra began tfoe overture in walked 
two gentlemen whom the usher showed to the vacant 
seats in row A. One of the men was tall, bald, portly 
and rather good-looking and well dressed ; he had a 
sandy mustache, and what hair was left on his head 
was reddish, crisp, and curly. He was probably forty- 
five years old. His companion was probably not more 
than twenty-one, tall, thin, dark-complexioned, with 
but a semblance of a mustache. The ladies smiled as 
the gentlemen took their places. The men looked at 
each other, winked, and laughed. When the two were 
seated, the bald-headed man made a close and evi- 
dently satisfactory scrutiny of the ladies, and catching 
the eye of the one in the beaver hat, the two exchanged 
smiles — not broad, committal grins, but soft smiles 
of mutual recognition. The second lady only dared 
to look sideways now and then. The second gentle- 
man, who sat next to the ladies, was rather shy and 
kept his hand up to his face from beginning to end of 
the play. It was evident this was the first time the 



BEFORE THE FOOT-LIGHTS. 



63 



quartette had met, and it was evident also that they had 
made up their minds to act with all due decorum while 
in the theatre. Smiles were now and then exchanged, 
but no words were spoken. Once one of the ladies 
sent her programme to the bald man, who had none. 
During the third act of the play the baldhead began 
writing short notes which the lady in the beaver 
hat answered affirmatively with a nod of her head. 
When the show was over the two ladies went 
around one street, the two men around an- 
other, and they met in the middle of the block 
opposite the theatre. There was a brief conver- 
sation in which a great deal of tittering was heard, and 
then the quart- 
ette proceeded 
to a quiet res- 
taurant of the 
most question- 
able reputation 
and took one 
of the private 
supper-rooms, 
which are at 
the disposal of 
people whose 
visit to the es- 
tablishment is 
not by any 
means for the 
sole purpose of 
drinking and 
eating, but has 
a broad and very unmistakable suggestion of immor- 
ality in it. 

The key to the whole affair can be found in the fol- 




GEORGE AXD HARRY. 



64 



BEFORE THE FOOT-LIGHTS. 




LOUISE MONTAGUE. 

lowing advertisement published in the Globe-Democrat of 
the preceding Sunday : — 



BEFOKE THE FOOT-LIGHTS, 



C5 



Personal. — Two gentlemen of middle age and 
means desire to become acquaiuted with two vivacious, 
fun-loving young ladies who like to go to the theatre. 
Address George and Harry, this offiee. 




MAUD BRANSCOMB. 



George and Harry had received an answer to this 
advertisement from " Mamie and Sadie," and, just to 
toeet and become acquainted with them, had purchased 
the four seats in row A, centre section. Grand Opera 



66 BEFORE THE FOOT-LIGHTS. 

House, making the theatre their place of assignation. 
" Mamie and Sadie " were by no means the innocent 
and unsophisticated creatures they seemed to be. 
One of them was the wife of a travelling man who was 
necessarily away from home ten months in a year ; the 
other was nymph du pave — a street-walker — who 
scoured the principal thoroughfares at night for vic- 
tims to carry to her " furnished room," and who had 
been educated up to the "personal" racket by the 
lonely and wayward young wife of the commercial 
drummer. 

So much for the noisy, otherwise obtrusive phases 
of the subject. The ladies who go to the theatre to 
display themselves, to flash their jewels and flaunt 
their silks and laces in the faces of the community, 
have become so accustomed to the general run of 
theatrical attractions that they are really no longer 
spectators, and may be justly classed among the dis- 
tracting agencies in the audience. Their mission is a 
" mashing" one to a certain extent, but it is " mash- 
ing " of a vain and by no means harmful character. 
Other ladies are seen in the dress circle and the boxes 
who do not disguise the fact that they have come to 
the theatre to fascinate the too, too yielding men. At 
the matinees there are women of questionable repute 
who unblushingly advertise their calling and who must 
be set down as a feature most objectionable to the 
respectable portion of any community. They behave 
themselves as far as words or actions go, but their 
mere presence in the play-house is an annoyance that 
refined and elegant people cannot tolerate. That is all 
about them. Now for the very worst practices that 
are occasionally noted in theatres, and that the mana- 
gers know ver}' little if anything about, — the women 
who are there for nefarious purposes, and the men w T ho 



BEFORE THE FOOT-LIGHTS. 67 

have other ideas than gratifying their vanity or merely 
making heart-conquests. It is a notorious and flagrant 
fact that fast women use the theatre as places of assig- 
nation, wherein they meet old and make new acquaint- 
ances, and it is equally notorious that men whose 
whole energy seems bent to the distinction of inno- 
cent girlhood make it a rendezvous for the purpose of 
selecting and snaring their victims. 

It is perfectly safe to assume that the cunning and 
sinful pair fleeced George and Harry before they got 
through with them. 

The very same evening my attention was called by 
a young lady to a thinly-bearded, spectacled, sickly- 
looking middle-a^ed man who sat in the next seat to 
the lady, and who, she complained, had stepped on her 
foot several times and in other ways tried to attract 
her attention and get her into a conversation. I at 
once recognized the fellow as one of an unscrupulous 
set who pored over big ledgers in the Court-House, and 
gave the greater portion of their time to discussions 
concerning female friends of ill-repute, and to boast- 
ing of the ruin they had brought or were about to bring 
to some innocent young girl. 

The same man was in the habit of buying single 
seats in the dress circle and visited the theatre fre- 
quently. He represents a class of venerable, but 
iniquitous fellows who make a practice of mixing in 
among the ladies, in the hope of scraping an occa- 
sional acquaintance, and who have no good intention 
in desiring to extend the circle of their female friends. 
They should be kept out of every respectable place of 
amusement. 




SELINA DOLARO. 



CHAPTER VI. 



BEHIND THE SCENES, 



My first experiences behind the scenes were in a 
small, dark cellar, owned by a man who is now a mem 
ber of the Missouri Legislature, and where daily and 
nightly a select company of would-be Ethiopian come- 
dians of tender age gave performances to small crowds 
of children each of whom had paid an admission fee in 
pins or corks — for we valued the corks highly as a 
necessary portion of our stock in trade ; we charred 
many a one to blacken our faces and treasured them as 
if thev were worth their weight in srold. Our sta^e 
was roughly constructed of boards laid upon barrels ; 
baling material hnnsc around the rear and sides of 
the stage to shut in the mysteries of the remarkable 
dressing-room we had, and an old gray cloth and 
blanket formed the curtain which parted in the middle 
in the manner of the sta^e curtains of the Elizabethan 
age. Bits of candles were our foot-lights and the au- 
dience, made up of boys and girls, were satisfied to sit 
for hours on rude benches stretched across the width 
of the cellar. We played nothing but black-face 
pieces, and as they were not taken from books, but 
were the memories of sketches we had seen in some 
pretentious theatrical resort, they were, of course, short 
and entirely crude. No member of that little band 
has risen to greatness in the theatrical profession, but 
I think every one of them now living looks back 
fouclly to the triumphs of our cellar career. To me 

(69) 



70 



BEHIND THE SCENES. 



that rude stage and its gunny-bag surroundings were 
more interesting and full of mystery than have been any 
of the wonderful and beautiful temples of Thespis 
which I have since entered ; and I think when I played 




JOHN W. M CULLOUGH. 



the part of Ephraim in some ludicrous sketch, and in 
response to the old man's cries from the stage, " Eph- 
raim ! Ephraim! say boy, whar is you?" and I got 
up suddenly in the rear of the audience and shouted 



BEHIND THE SCENES. 71 

back, " Hyar I is, boss !" — when this supreme mo- 
ment arrived, and the crowd looked back surprised and 
laughed, the glow of conscious pride and artistic 
power that filled my heart was as genuinely agreeable 
as the thunders of applause that greet Booth or John 
McCullough when their admirers call them before the 
curtain after a great act. 

I have only a dim recollection of my first introduc- 
tion to the professional stage. The fairy spectacle of 
" Cherry and Fair Star" was running at a local theatre, 
with Robert Mc Wade, of recent Rip Van Winkle fame, 
and Miss Wallace in the cast. By some good or bad 
fortune I happened to be loitering in the neighborhood 
of the back door of the theatre, when the captain of 
the supers called me and hired me at twenty-five cents 
a night to go on as imp in one of the spectacular 
scenes. I was on hand promptly, and shall never 
forget my wonder and astonishment at getting a first 
glimpse of the secrets of the stage. It was almost 
pitch dark when the back door was entered, and there 
was nothing in the place at all suggestive of the glamour 
that the foot-lights throw upon the scene. Huge clouds 
of black canvas rose upon all sides, and men and boys 
in the dirtiest of workday clothes were the only persons 
met. The noise of hammer and saw rose on vari- 
ous sides, and it seemed as if the stage had not been 
one-half prepared for the play that the curtain would 
ring up on within an hour. The dressing-room in which 
fifty or sixty boys were arraying themselves looked 
like the interior of a costume establishment after a 
cyclone had passed through it. But when all were 
dressed, and the fairies and the goblins assembled in 
the " wings," and the foot-lights were turned up and 
the orchestra outside was rattling through some in- 
spiring air, the small boy in impish raiment was im- 



72 BEHIND THE SCENES. 

mediately wrapt into a seventh heaven of delight. 
There was a multitude of girls in very low-necked and 
short dresses with glowing flesh-colored tights that 
seemed such inadequate covering for the rounded 
limbs that blushing was inevitable. The bright colors 
in their cheeks, the blackly outlined eyes and the 
blonde wigs added to the interest of the new charms. 
Every bit of glorious color in the gorgeous scenery ap- 
peared to flash out amid the flood of light. I ran 
against every variety of demon that was ever known 
to M. D. Conway, and was pushed out of the way of a 
hundred persons only to find myself obstructing some- 
body else's progress. The magnificent revelations of 
that night filled me with awe and astonishment for 
many a w r eek afterward. It was the only night I ap- 
peared as an imp, for I had accepted the engagement 
without parental knowlege or consent, and w 7 hen they 
learned of my success they at once put a decided and 
impressive veto upon any further efforts in the direc- 
tion of the professional stage. 

That first experience was not, of course, as abun- 
dant in opportunities for observation as later experi- 
ences have been. The world behind the foot-lights — 
the mimic world as it is called — is a realm of the 
most startling and pleasing kind. Not only is there 
food for wonder in what the eye falls upon, but the 
people who furnish the fun for the world are often 
among themselves as prolific of pleasantry as if they 
expected the applause of a full house to follow their 
jokes. They say and do the strangest things, and for 
a visitor who is investigating the mysteries of their 
surroundings, often make the time as lively and the 
surroundings as enjoyable as it is possible for really 
clever and good-natured people to do. The best time 
to go behind the scenes is during the engagement of a 




BELLE HOWITT IN "BLACK CKOOK." (73) 



(4 BEHIND THE SCENES. 

burlesque or comic opera company, and I will intro- 
duce the reader to a happy crowd of this kind that I 
once found myself in. 

In 1879 the Kiralfys brought out their spectacular 
burlesque entitled "A Trip to the Moon," and I had 
the pleasure, during its run, of dropping in behind the 
scenes of a Western theatre one night to have a peep at 
the pictures there presented. Now, the moon is 
something like two hundred and eighty thousand miles 
from here — that is the one reputed to be made of 
green cheese, and having phases as numerous as the 
occasions that ring the April skies with rainbows. 
But the Kiralfys' moon was in another firmament, 
shining out amid stars that, when they wink their 
twinkling eyes or shuffle their shining feet, as they do 
frequently, the celestial shiners have got to put on 
their cloud ulsters, and sit down while the lachrymose 
eyes of the heavens give up their tears. That is why 
it was raining torrents the night I went behind the 
scenes with Mr. Bolossy Kiralfy. As I went in the 
back door Prof. Microscope, one of the funny charac- 
ters in the play, brushed by with a telescope under his 
arm that was large enough to put Lord Boss's famous 
spy-glass into its vest pocket, if it had one. The 
moon to which the trip was to be made was not so far 
as two hundred and eighty thousand miles by a half 
block or so, but it was a veiy funny world, full of gas- 
light and laughter, and with the most mirthful sports 
imaginable on its glowing surface. I was inclined 
somewhat to lunar ways, and thinking like a great 
many other credulous mortals, that the trans-atmo- 
spheric trip was really made in a cartridge-built coach 
that was fired out of a huge mortar at the rate of about 
eighteen thousand six hundred and sixty-six and two- 
thirds miles a minute, had fully made up my mind to 



BEHIND THE SCENES. 75 

ride on the roof or cow-catcher of the concern, at what- 
ever risks to life and limb space might abound in. I 
expected to find something like a solid space-annihilat- 
ing Colnmbiad behind the scenes, but I was somewhat 
mistaken. 

Just before the curtain was rung up I found myself 
in the midst of the fairy world upon which the brilliancy 
of the foot-light falls. While the curtain was still 
down, and before the gasman had opened the flood- 
gates of splendor, the place was dark ; not pitch dark, 
but pretty dark, compared with the brilliancy that 
shown in, over, and around its space a few minutes 
later. And then its intricacies, pieces of scenery here, 
various properties there, and sections of everything 
and anything scattered anywhere and everywhere, 
made a fellow feel as if the place was darker than it 
really was. Glittering and glowing as the stage 
appears before the foot-lights ; wonderfully romantic as 
are its shades and lights, its love and laughter; and 
astounding as are its scenic effects ; its area and sur- 
soundin^s are terriblv realistic when the foot-lights are 
left behind, and the " business " of a play is once laid 
bare. Here the sighs of love-sick maidens and the 
spooning of gilt-edged but uncourageous wooers, the 
tears of injured innocence and the self-gratulations of 
hard-hearted villains who still pursue the ftying female, 
the prattle of young mouths and the mumblings of 
"old men" and "old women," are lost with the 
departed scenes of the play in the unceasing desire of 
the actors to get back into their proper social and 
friendly relations to each other, and, once the prompt- 
er's book is closed, stage talk and stage manner are 
under metaphoric lock and key, and romance is for a 
while at an end. 

On opera bouffe or burlesque nights, however, a 



76 BEHIND THE SCENES. 



great deal of the stage charm clings to the characters 
even when off the stage, and one is compelled to be 
interested in the grotesqneness of those to be met in 
the side scenes — the odd and often pretty creatures 
who Btand, sit, lie or lean around in the " wings " at 




MLLE HOUGET. 

their own sweet leisure and pleasure. There is some- 
thing so indescribably funny in the costumes, in the 
facial make-up, and all that, of the happy opera-bouffer 
or festive burlesquer, that the eye follows a quaint 
character through the scenes with the same inalienable 



BEHIND THE SCENES. 77 

interest as that with which the small boy hovers around 
the heels of an Italian with a hand-organ and a monkey. 
The eye, however, must not, cannot linger or languish 

long upon a single one of these walking wardrobes. 
There is a moving panorama constantly in front of the 
surprised vision, and before an electric flash could 
photograph one single individual in his droll toggery 
there would be a dozen or more " shassaying " before 
the camera. 

There was leaning against one of the "wings" a 
naive and sprightly piece of feminine beauty, set off in 
the handsomest and most enticing manner in the world 
by a well-rounded, gracefully curved pair of pink 
tights, a white satin surtout and mantelet, plentifully 
besprent with glittering braid and flashing beads, 
dainty silk slippers that would have made a Chinese 
princess weep with envy, and a jaunty white hat to 
match. She was, of course, to figure as the charming 
little hero of the evening, if burlesques can be said to 
have such things as heroes. A doughty old chap, 
with bristling hair and a porcupine moustache, 
was standing by talking to little pink tights. He was 
gotten up like a circus poster in forty colors, with a 
plentiful array of red on his head and legs and a sort 
of sickly-looking, rainbow-sandwich built about his 
body. Red, blue and black streaks straying over his 
features made it appear as if he might have been as- 
signed the role of an ogre and was accustomed to 
nightly look around for his fair companion to make a 
meal of her. I immediately made friends with the comic 
horror and the little lady in pink tights and learned 
who and what they were. The latter was (in the play, 
of course) a nobby young blood known as Prince 
(Japrice, personated by Miss Alice Harrison ; the red- 
legged comedian was King Pin, the young Prince's 



78 BEHIND THE SCENES. 

funny father and Mr. Louis Harrison was hidden 
under the remarkable royal disguise. 

" Well, when are we going to start for the moon? " 
I asked, good-humoredly. 

" In a few fleeting moments," was the regal dough- 
belly's reply. 

"And are all these folks going into the projectile? " 
pointing to the crowd of curious characters passing and 
repassing us. 

" Not if the court knows herself and she thinks she 
does," put in the Prince, pertly; " only the King, 
Prof. Microscope and myself ride in the cab." 

Prof. Microscope was a long, scrawny fellow. He 
was twirling a shaggy moustache and buzzing a hand- 
some and not at all bashful ballet girl at the same 
time, a short distance away, He was gotten up in a 
blue-striped, swallow-tail coat, long enough, if the 
Professor cared about lending or renting it out, to be 
used for a streamer on the City Hall flagstaff, and 
short enough in the back to have the waist-buttons 
constantly challenging the collar to a prize fight or 
wrestling match. Very tight black pants, a luxuri- 
antly frilled shirt front, fluted cuffs, and white hair 
allowed to grow to the length worn b.v Buffalo Bill, com- 
pleted his outfit. When I was introduced to him, the 
Professor swore by the bones of Copernicus' s grand- 
mother on a volume of patent office reports that he 
was the sole originator and engineer of the only direct 
moon line, and he'd bet his boots or eat his hat that it 
never took more than fifteen minutes to make the 
trip. 

" You see," said King Pin, " that Microscope is a 
queer fellow — not a coney man, you mind." 

"Although," said the Prince, "he now and then 
casts his lot on the turn of the die." 




LILLIE WEST. 



80 BEHIND THE SCENES. 

14 Yes, his lot of last year's clothing," the jolly 
King remarked, " on the turn of the dyer." 

This effort resulted in six of the supers, who were 
gotten up in voluminous dominoes with elaborate, but 
inexpensive, pasteboard trimmings, and who were within 
hearing distance, falling stiff and stark to the stage. 

" Does this kind of thing occur often? " I inquired. 

"Oh," growled the Professor, "that gag was 
stuffed and on exhibition at the Centennial. It was 
found in an Indian mound near Memphis, and is old." 

And so the talk went on for a while, when up went 
the curtain and King Pin leaping on the stage amidst the 
laughter and plaudits of the house, told how the pretty 
Prince Caprice had tired of mundane things and was 
heavily sighing for the fountain-head of the lambent 
silvery moonlight. Microscope, who was at the head 
of the Royal College of Astronomers, was besought to 
do something to aid the Prince in accomplishing the 
journey to Merrie Moonland, and in a neat speech un- 
folded his plans for a grand dynamo-etherial line that 
would speedily carry the Prince to the wished-for 
happy Land of Luna. 

Then came the glorious moment when the flight 
moon wards was to be made. I hurried around to the 
prompter's side of the stage where I saw the mouth of 
the huge cannon gaping, and got there as they were 
about to fire it. Imagine my surprise to find the extra- 
ordinary piece of ordnance made entirely of pasteboard, 
a substance that a few grains of gunpowder would blow 
into as many pieces as the leaves of Vallambrosia. 
Still the passengers were to be fired out of this con- 
trivance, and I felt that if they and the cannon could 
stand it, it was none of my business. It had all been 
explained to the audience, that King Pin, Prince 
Caprice and Prof. Microscope were the only three per- 




PAULINE MARKHAM. 



BEHIND THE SCENES. 81 

sons to be given seats in the cartridge-cub in which the 
wonderful journey was to be made. The question 
therefore naturally arose, what was to become of the 
multitude of characters that crowded the " wings." 
There were " supers " in black, yellow and mottled 
dominoes with high papier-mache casques, and huge 
ear-trimmings that reminded one of the flaps that 
decorate the sides of a Chicago girl's head, or the sails 
of a lake lumberman. There were star-gazers with 
zodiacal garments and tin telescopes, all set off by 
great pairs of soda-bottle-lens eye-glasses, that gave 
them the air of a Secchi, or somebody else of astro- 
nomical aspect. There were guards who shouldered 
tooth brushes made entirely of wood, with index hands 
surmounting the tops of their chapeaux and serving to 
indicate that their intellects had gone moon-hunting ; 
and there were other creatures, among them, horrible 
genii, who started for the moon by some short route 
across lots and got there long before the regular ex- 
cursionists. 

But the corps de ballet ! It was everything but a 
beauty. If there is anything likely to strike a theatre- 
goer as ludicrous, it is an awkward squad of over- 
grown girls, with gauze-garnished limbs and dissipated- 
looking blonde wigs. A precocious ballet-debutante is a 
bit of Dead-Sea fruit shot backward off Terpischore's 
head, and if the bullet does not lay TerjDsichore her- 
self out in a first-class undertaker's style it is because 
Terpsichore happens to be in terribly good luck. 
These reflections were suggested by a sight of the 
intermingling danseuses that kept pretty well in the 
rear of the stao;e. You could tell the height to which 
each one could safely fling her foot on looking at her. 
The girl who was making her first appearance had not 
yet gotten over her splay footedness, and every time 



OZ BEHIND THE SCENES. 

she took a peep at the audience and began to realize 
the airiness of her costume and gawkiness of her man- 
ners, her knees knocked together fast enough to keep 
a few notes ahead of her chattering teeth. And her 
dress ! there was nothing marvellous about it — noth- 
ing that would carry a person off into the ideal finan- 
cial realms of a national debt. It was powerfully 
plain with a stiff and provoking effort at showiness. 
The next line, who also may be classed as figurantes, 
are plainly to be distinguished by their natty air of 
sauciness and a noticeable clipping-off of the super- 
abundant clothing that encumbers the latest additions 
to the corps. The coryphees, though,- are radiant in 
glittering, close-fitting silver mail, and there is ac- 
quired grace in their actions, and a high haughtiness 
in the toss of their heads. The premieres everybody 
understands and recognizes, who has once seen them 
pirouette on their toes or slam around in a wild 
ecstasy of dancing delight that would give anybody 
else a vertigo and lead to numerous and possibly se- 
rious dislocations. Well, all these were whispering or 
prattling together, in the way of the scene-shifters, 
who went around reckless of their lansma^e, with 
sleeves rolled up and anxious faces and ^questioning 
eyes turned upon all whom they encountered there. 
It struck me, as I gazed upon this almost naked and 
highly interesting ballet, that if the moon had no 
atmosphere, as those who know best claim, the cos- 
tumes of these gay and giddy girls were airy enough 
to stock it with a pretty extensive and healthy one. 
Out of this jumble of scenery and from the midst of 
these jostling characters the start was made for the 
moon. There was no carriage, no cartridge, no load 
in the cannon. Her trip as a trip was a most undis- 
guised and diaphanous fraud. While King Pin, the 




ADAH ISAAC MENKEN. 



(83) 



84 BEHIND THE SCENES. 

Prince, the Professor, and the rest were arranging 
themselves in a happy tableau behind the second " flat " 
bang! went a gun fired by one of the supers, across 
the stage flew several "dummies' 7 or stuffed figures 
in the direction of the roof, the scene opened and lo 
the jolly crowd were in Moonlaud. King Pin, Prince 
Caprice and Microscope were there together, as fresh 
and fair as if they were accustomed to making two- 
hundred-and-eighty-thousand-mile trips. The mon- 
arch of the moon, King Kosmos (W. A. Mestayer), 
after having summoned his retinue of Selenites — the 
same long-robed, pillow-stomached and pasteboard- 
eared crew who had died behind the scenes a few min- 
utes before from an over-stroke of punning — and 
having things explained to everybody's satisfaction, 
came forward and fell on the several necks of the ter- 
restrial visitors, was punched in the paunch, by the 
King, enough times to set all the Moonites into roars 
of laughter, and then they all joined in stretching their 
necks and rasping their throats in a welcoming chorus 
to their guests. 

It was unfortunate for the visitors that King Kosmos 
had a beautiful little princess of a daughter called 
Fantasia (Miss Gracie Plaisted), with a voice that rip- 
pled and rolled in music, earthly as the bulbul's notes 
and celestial as the songs of the spheres ; and, of course, 
foolish little Caprice had to go and fall in love with 
her and sing innumerable sweet songs to her, all of 
which only got poor old Pin and his friends into all 
sorts of trouble. This they finally managed to get out 
of by returning to mother earth in a gorgeouslj 7 -ap- 
pointed ftying ship, as grand as Cleopratra's galley. 
Before decamping, however, Moonland was visited in 
every part, and its gardens of silver-tinged foliage, its 
crystal palaces, that made pale Luna's light more bril- 



IiEIIINl) THE SCENES. 



85 



liant still, its icy mountains with mass of frostage, 
in and about which the ballet wound in the graceful 
rhythm of " Les Flocons de Niege," were all taken in, 




MILLIE LA FONTE. 

and notwithstanding an occasional hitch in getting the 
panorama around, everything in this new and gleaming 
sphere was really glorious for a first-night visit. 



CHAPTEK VII 



IX THE DRESSING-ROOM 



These same people who appear grotesque, and out 
of the pale of ordinary every-day existence on the 
stage, are nearly always the most unromantic and realis- 
tic-looking folks in the world when you meet them on 
the street. The extraordinary metamorphosis they go 
through to arrive at an appearance suitable for pre- 
sentation before the foot-lights is a secret of the dress- 
ing-room. In the privacy of this carefully guarded 
apartment street clothes are laid aside, and what is 
more wonderful still, faces, eyes, and hands and lower 
limbs, too, very frequently, are subjected to processes 
that produce the most remarkable results. Anybody 
who has seen Nat Goodwin, of " Hobbies " reputation, 
will readily understand that it takes a pretty extensive 
transformation to change his appearance from that of 
the man to that of Prof. Pygmalion Whiffles, the 
eccentric character that makes " Hobbies '• the laugh- 
able and popular play that it is. Mr. Goodwin is 
young — not more than twenty-four — but I saw him 
slip out of his youthfulness into the bald-headed, red- 
wigged and merry old professor one night in almost as 
short a time as it takes a boy to fall through a four- 
story elevator shaft. I accompanied him to his dress- 
ing-room one night. He had just a few minutes to get 
ready, and was in proper shape in time to make his 
appearance at the upper entrance, amid the crash that 
always accompanies his first appearance in the play, 

(86) 



IN THE DRESSING-ROOM. 




BALLET GIRLS DRESSING-ROOM. 

and gives him an opportunity to make some remarks 
about Maj. Bang's dog, which has ripped his " ulster " 



88 IN THE DRESSING-ROOM. 

up the back. Well, Goodwin went to work the 
moment he was inside the door. Off came the every- 
day clothes, and in a jiffy on went the one white and 
black stocking that will be remembered by all who 
have seen ''Hobbies." The shirt, coat, pantaloons, 
linen duster and hat that forms the rest of his toilet, 
were carefully laid upon a side table. The shirt was 
flapped over his head in a second, the pantaloons went 
on like lightning and then bending towards a looking- 
glass he dipped his fingers in red and black color 
boxes, and soon had the necessary painting done upon 
his face. The velvet coat followed the making-up of 
the face ; then the torn linen duster, finally the red w wig 
with its charming bald spot, was clapped upon his 
head ; the white hat was graceful^ tilted over it, and 
with a call to the man who played Arthur Doveleigh 
for his cane and an " I'll see you later " to his visitor, 
he bounded up the stairs, and the next moment, as I 
left the stage door, I could hear the hand-clapping and 
the howls of delight with which a crowded house was 
greeting their favorite. 

The great value of the art of making-up, as the 
preparation for participation in a play is called, both 
in the matter of painting the face and costuming, will 
be understood when the stoiy told by Maze Edwards, 
who was Edwin Booth's manager during the tour of 
1881-2, is recited. * * * The company got to 
Waterbury, Connecticut, ahead of their baggage. 
When the hour for the performance arrived the bag- 
gage, consisting of all their costumes and parapherna- 
lia was still missing. The manager was in a terrible 
plight ; but I will let him tell his own story as he told 
it to a newspaper reporter a short time after the occur- 
rence. 

" When I found the baggage, with the costumes, 



IN THE DRESSING-ROOM. 



8!) 



had not arrived, " said Edwards, " I was just going to 
throw myself into the river. Then I thought I would 
go and tell Mr. Booth about it and bid good-bye to 
some of the people who had always thought a good 
deal of me, before killing myself. To my astonish- 




EDWIN BOOTH. 



ment Mr. Booth took it as coolly as you would take an 
invitation to drink. He said, inasmuch as the people 
were in the hall, he would make a few remarks to them 



00 IN THE DRESSIXG-ROOM. 

about the accident, and then they would go on and 
play three acts of " Hamlet " in the clothes they had 
on. And so it was fixed up that way. Well, the 
thought of Hamlet in a short-tailed coat and light 
pants almost made me sick, and when Mr. Booth came 
upon the stage, looking like an Episcopal minister, 
with a Knight Templar's cheese knife that he bor- 
rowed, I couldn't think of anything but Hamlet. I 
forgot all about his clothes, and I believe if he had 
only had on a pair of sailor's pants and a red flannel 
fireman's shirt that the people would only have seen 
Hamlet. I tell you he is the greatest actor that ever 
lived. The people sat perfectly still, and seemed 
wrapped up in Booth. That is, they were when they 
did not look at the other fellows. But when they took 
Laertes, with a short, ham-fat coat on, a pair of lah- 
de-dah pants and a pan-cake hat, it seemed to me I 
could hear them smile. And the King, Hamlet's step- 
father, he was a sight. Imagine a king with a cut- 
away checkered coat, a Pullman car blanket thrown 
over his shoulder for a robe, and a leg of a chair for a 
sceptre, mashed on a queen with a travelling dress and 
a gray woollen basque with buttons on it. And think 
of Polonius, with a linen duster and a straw hat with a 
blue ribbon on. Oh, it made me tired. Ophelia was 
all right enough. She had on some crazy clothes that 
she had been travelling in, and we got some straw out 
of a barn and some artificial flowers off the bonnets, 
and she pulled through pretty well. But the Ghost! 
You would have died to have seen the Ghost. He had 
on one of those long hand-me-down ulster overcoats 
with a buckle on the back as big as a currycomb and the 
belt was hanging down on both sides. The boys o-ot 
him a green mosquito bar to put over it, and with a 
stuffed club for a sceptre, he fell over a chair and then 



IN THE DRESSING-ROOM. 



91 



came on. I should have laughed if I had been on my 
death -bed when he said to Hamlet, ' I am thy father's 
ghost ! ' He looked more like a drummer for a whole- 
sale confectionery house, with a sort of tin skimmer 




M KEE RANKIN. 

on his head, and I believe the audience would have 
gone wild with laughter if it had not been for Mr. 
Booth. I don't believe you could get him to laugh on 
the stage for a million dollars. He just looked at the 
Ghost as though it was a genuine one, and the audience 



92 IN THE DRESSING-ROOM. 

looked at Booth, .and forgot all about the ulster and 
the Ghost 1 s pants being rolled up at the bottom. It 
was probably the greatest triumph that an actor ever 
had for Mr. Booth to compel the vast audience to for- 
get the ludicrous surroundings and think only of the 
character he was portraying. I wouldn't have missed 
the night's performance for a thousand dollars, and 
when, at 10 o'clock, I heard the boys getting the 
trunks up-stairs, I was almost sorry. The last two 
acts were played with the costumes, but they were no 
better performed than the first. Still, I think, on the 
whole, I had rather the baggage would be there. It 
makes a manager feel better." 

In the olden times, and in the days of the early 
American theatre, the dressing-rooms were beneath 
the stage, and were by no means the perfect and cozy 
places that are to be found in existence at present. 
Hodgkinson, I think it was, who, during the last cen- 
tury built the first theatre having dressing-rooms above 
and upon the stage. Later improvement has removed 
the dressing-rooms, in first-class houses, entirely from 
the stage, ample and neatly-furnished rooms being 
provided in adjoining buildings. This change has been 
necessitated by the demand made upon theatrical man- 
agers for greater stage room and better opportunities 
than they had heretofore in keeping up with the grow- 
ing taste for extensive scenic representations with 
magnificent appointments. The star of a company, 
male or female, always has the best dressing-room the 
establishment affords, and it is generally very close to 
the green-room. Minor performers share their rooms ; 
and the captain of the supers usually has an apart- 
ment beneath the stage where he gathers his Roman 
mob, or marshals his mail-clad but awkward squad of 
warriors No better burlesque upon this ill-clothed, 



IN THE DUESSINU-KOOM. 



93 



dirty-faced, knock-kneed and ridiculous theatrical con- 
tingent has ever been presented either in type or on 
the stage, than the character of the Roman Lictor 
created by Louis Harrison in San Francisco, and after- 







THE THREE VILLAS. 



wards relegated to another performer in " Photos.'' 
The story is told that Harrison having been cast for 
the part of a lictor in a tragedy in which John McCul- 



94 IN THE DRESSING-ROOM. 

lough took the leading role, he grew offended, having 
higher aspirations than mere utility business, and de- 
termined to make the part funny and, if possible, spoil 
the scene. When he came on the stage, he was in war- 
paint, his face strewn with gory colors and interming- 
ling black ; he had on the dirtiest costume he could 
find, with a battered rusty helmet, and carried the 
insignia of his office so awkwardly, while his knees 
came together his toes turned in, and his general atti- 
tude was that of a man in the third week of a hard 
spree. He brought the house down, spoiled the play 
and was discharged for making too much of a success 
of the part. But this is a digression, and we must 
hurry back to the dressing-room. 

The most difficult part of the actor's work prelim- 
inary to going on the stage is to make-up his face. 
By the judicious use of powder and paint, and a proper 
disposition of wigs, beard, etc., the oldest man may 
be made to assume juvenility and the youngest to 
seem to bend with the weight of years. Wigs are to 
a great extent reliable, but the old fashioned false 
beard is clumsy and apt to make the wearer feel dis- 
satisfied with himself and the rest of the world. But 
the old fashioned beard is going out of style, and gray 
wool stuck on the face with grease is generally used. 
I can recall vividly how a beard of this sort worn by 
poor George Conly, the basso, while singing the part 
of Gaspard in " The Chimes of Normandy," while 
with the Emma Abbot troupe last season, struck me 
as the perfection of deception. It always requires a 
dresser to put on one of these beards in anything like 
a satisfactory manner. 

An old actor of the " crushed " type who has been 
almost forced off the stage and into running a dra- 
matic college, by the young and pushing element in 



IN THE DRESSING-KOOM. 95 

the profession, in an interview had with him lately in 
Philadelphia, remarked, as he looked with evident in- 
terest upon the crowds in the street : " I like to study 
faces. To my mind it is the most absorbing study in 
the world — that of men's faces. You see, the thing 
has more interest for me than for the run of men even 
in my profession, because I'm an enthusiast in a cer- 
tain sense. I belong to the times when the study and 
make-up of faces was mighty important in the theatri- 
cal line. It wasn't such a longtime ago, either; but 
the times have changed since then, until now there 
seems to be almost no effort at all to make-up and 
look 3'our part. 

"It must be a great deal of trouble to make up 
every night." 

" Oh, but, my boy, look at the result ! Go down to 
the theatre, where they still do it, and if only five 
years have elapsed between the acts, see how it is 
shown on every nice on the stage." 

" It is difficult to make-up well, is it not?" 

"Well, no," said the actor, lighting a fresh cigar 
and assuming a more confidential pose, " the rules 
are simple enough, and with a little practice, almost 
any amateur could learn to make up artistically if he 
has any eye for effect. Some parts, like Romeo, 
Charles Surface, Sidney Darrell or Claude Melnotte, 
require very little make up for a young and good-look- 
ing actor. The face and neck should be thoroughly 
covered with white powder, and the cheek bones 
and chin lightly touched with rouge, which should not 
be too red. Then, as the lover ought to look handsome, 
he should draw a fine black line under his lower eye- 
lashes with a camel hair brush and burnt umber. 
This makes the eyes brilliant. I'm sure it isn't much 
trouble to make up that way." 



96 



IN THE DRESSING-ROOM. 




SARAH BERNHARDT, 



" Other characters are harder, though? '' 
" Oh, immeasurably so. But to make a maturer 
man, like Cassio, lago, Mercutio, John Midway or 



IN THE DRESSING-ROOM. 97 

Hawksley, it requires only a little more work. After 
the actor has laid on his powder and rouged his face 
pretty heavily — for men are commonly rather red- 
faced — he must take his brush and umber and trace 
some lines from the outer corners of the eyes, and 
other lines down toward the corners of the mouth 
from the nose. In short, he must make the * crows ' 
feet that are visible in all men who have lived over 
thirty years in this tantalizing world of ours. Then 
the chin should be touched with a little blue powder, 
which makes it look as if recently shaved. These pre- 
cautions will make the most juvenile face look mature. 
If he has to go further, and look like old age, as in 
such characters as Lear, Virginius, — for, as I said 
before, Virginius, was an old man, — Richelieu, Sir 
Peter Teazle, and so on, more work is necessary. 
Heavy false eyebrows must be pasted on, and the eye- 
hollow darkened and fairly crowded with lines. 
Wrinkles must be painted across the forehead, furrows 
down the cheeks, downward lines from the corners of 
the mouth, and (very important) three or four heavy 
wrinkles painted around the neck to give it the shriv- 
eled appearance common to old age. The hollow 
over the upper lip should be darkened, and also the 
hollow under the lower lip. This gives the mouth 
the pinched and toothless look. A little powdered 
antimony on the cheeks makes them look fallen in and 
shrunken. Then tone the face down with a delicate 
coating of pearl powder, and you'll have as old a look- 
ing man as you'd care to see." 

" How does it feel?" 

"At first your face feels tightened, and the muscles 
don't play easily, butf after a few grimaces it comes out 
all right. It's a great relief to get off, however, after 
three hours' work." 



98 IN THE DRESSING-ROOM. 

"It must cause rather mournful forecasts when a 
man looks on his own face made up for the age of, 
say, eighty years." 

"Not so bad as when he makes up for a corpse, 
however. I'll never forget the first glance I had at 
my face after it had been made up for Gaston's death 
scene, when playing the " Man of the Iron Mask," in 
'62. It positively appalled me, sir, and I lay awake 
all that night thinking of it, and dreamed of myself 
in a coffin for a month afterward." 

" How is it done? " 

" Well, it varies slightly. You see, such characters 
as Lear, Virginius, Werner, and Beverly are before 
the audience some time before they actually die, and 
therefore, their faces cannot be made very corpse-like ; 
but Mathias in 'The Bells,' Louis XI., Gaston and 
Danny Mann are discovered dying when the scene 
opens, or are brought in dead, so that their faces can 
be made extreme. For the last series the face and 
neck should be spread with prepared pink to give it a 
livid hue in places. Then put a deep shading of pow- 
dered antimony under the eyebrows and well into the 
hollow of the eye, on the cheeks, throat and temples. 
This is very effective, as it gives the face that dread- 
fully sunken appearance as in death. The sides of the 
nose and even the upper lip should also be darkened, 
and the lips powdered blue. Then the face will look 
about as dead as it would three hours after a real 
death." * 

" In the make up of grotesque faces do they use 
false noses and chins?" 

" Very rarely. Usually the method is to stick some 
wool on the nose with a gum and mold it in whatever 
shape you will ; then powder and paint it as you would 
the natural nose for grotesque or comedy parts. Paste 




THE LATE ADELAIDE NFILSON. 



(99) 



100 IN THE DRESSING-ROOM. 

is put on with gum, instead of wool, sometimes. 
Clowns have to encase themselves fairly with whiting, 
and they find this trouble enough without building up 
noses or cheeks. Grotesque artists have to work hard 
with their faces as a rule, but they are often repaid by 
discovering neat points. Many of our best Dutch 
and Irish comedians owe their first lift to a lucky 
make-up." 

" I suppose there are types of the representation of 
different nationalities? " 

" Well, a gentleman is usually made-up the same, 
no matter where he may be supposed to belong, but 
the caricature is usually one of the well-known make- 
ups. A Frenchman has to be powdered with dark 
rouge, and has his evebrows blackened with dark ink. 
All dark characters, as mulattoes, Creoles, Spaniards, 
and so on, are done with whiting and dark rouge, with 
plenty of burnt cork and umber." 

" Is much work necessary on the hands? " 
" In witches it is of great importance that the hands 
and arms should be skinny and bony. This is usually 
done by a liberal powdering of Dutch pink, and paint- 
ing between the knuckles with burnt umber. Paint- 
ing between the knuckles, you see, makes them look 
large and bony. But this sounds a good deal like 
ancient history, now, does it not? The art is falling 
into disuse, my boy, and I've no doubt the time is not 
far off when we shall have youngsters playing old 
men with signs on their back reading, ' Please, sir, 
I'm eighty years old,' while their faces are as fresh as 
daisies." 

"To what do you attribute this tendency." 
" Laziness. The theatrical age of to-day is a won- 
der to me. The entire profession wants to star. An 
actor plays old men now simply for a living, while he 



IN THE DRESSING-ROOM. 101 

matures his plans for his contemplated starring tour. 
An actress does old women heavies or juveniles only 
until she can find a capitalist who will enable her to 
star, and none of them seem to take any pride in the 
minor parts. Hence, they don't take the trouble to 
makeup artistically, and the stage is robbed of its chief 
charm — realism . ' ' 

The looking-glass and the pots of paint and boxes of 
powder upon the shelves of the dressing-room are as im- 
portant adjuncts of the play, and even more important, 
sometimes, than the huge boxes and trunks filled with 
costumes that are found in the same place. They hold 
their place amid the diamond necklaces and brilliant 
bracelets of the prima donna, the cheaper jewels of the 
dramatic artiste and the crowns of kings and helmets 
of warriors. Their power is great, and that power 
is fully recognized by all who are within the domain 
of dramatic art. And the actor or actress, the prima 
donna and the swell tenor, all generally make it their 
business to attend to their own beautification in this 
way themselves. Nearly all star actors carry male 
servants who are known as dressers, and all prominent 
actresses have maids who accompany them to the 
theatre and these help to complete the artiste's 
toilets. Formerly there were barbers and hair- 
dressers, as well as other specialists, attached to places 
of amusement, and whose business it was to shave an 
actor or dress a head of hair before the performance. 
Many establishments retain these yet, but they are not 
as numerous or as well-known as they were before the 
days of travelling combinations. Apropos the theat- 
rical hair dresser there is quite an interesting story told. 
One of this class fell in love with a popular actress he 
was frequently called upon to beautify. He confessed 
his devouring passion on his knees and she laughed 




(102) 



DRESSING AN ACTRESS HAIR. 



IN THE DRESSING-ROOM. 103 

him to scorn. More than that, she insisted on his 
continuing his ministrations to her and made him the 
butt of her heartless gibes while he was devoting him- 
self to enhance her cruel loveliness. The iron entered 
his soul and he swore vengeance. One night, when 
he had to prepare her for a most important part, he 
surpassed himself in the splendor of her crowning dec- 
oration. Having finished he anointed her golden locks 
with a compound of a peculiarly fascinating aromatic 
odor, which so attracted his callous enslaver's notice 
that she asked him what it was. 

" It is a mixture of my own, Madame," he replied. 
" I call it the last breath of love." 

The actress remarked that she would call him a fool, 
and he bowed and withdrew. A few minutes later, 
when she appeared behind the footlights, instead of 
the roar of applause which she expected, she was 
hailed with a tempestuous scream of laughter. Her 
discarded lover had had his revenge. He had dyed 
her golden locks with a chemical which turned pea 
green as soon as it was dry. She dresses what hair 
she has left herself now, while he is boss of a five-cent 
shaving emporium, never speaks to any lady but his 
landlady, and has a Chinaman to do his washing. 

If there is a ballet or a burlesque crowd or comic 
opera chorus in the theatre the scenes in their rooms 
will be of a more diversified nature. The girls in 
addition to making their faces pretty, must have their 
limbs so shapely that no fault can be found even by 
the most cavilling of the gentlemen who crowd up 
behind the orchestra while the house holds a host 
of female attractions. The rage for limb exhibitions 
rendered it necessary that some means should be 
devised to hide the calves or poorly turned ankles of 
the creatures whose limbs are displayed. Happily the 



104 IN THE DRESSING-ROOM. 

symmetrical, as padded tights are called, were hit upon 
and now }'ou cannot find an unsightly piece of under- 
pinning in any combination, and even the poor ballet 
girl who does page's parts or helps to make up a crowd 
for $6 a week, will, if she has sense and taste, go early 
to the dealer in theatrical goods and have symmetri- 
cals made to suit the exigencies of her case. These 
artistic accessories of feminine fictitiousness are leggings 
or tights woven in such a manner the thickness of a 
deficient thigh, the pipe-stem character of a calf, are 
filled out with silk and cotton into shapefnlness and 
beauty that Venus de Medici herself would not be 
ashamed to make a display of. I heard a story about 
an operatic artist who for a long time refused to play 
parts demanding the exhibition even of a fraction of a 
limb, and all because her lower members were too 
attenuated to attract anj^thing else but ridicule. Lately 
she has found her way to the pad-maker's and now can 
present as pretty an ankle and as round a calf to the 
audience as sister artists who have more flesh and 
blood in their composition. Men as well as women 
patronize the pad-maker and any actor of the mashing 
persuasion who may have had to keep his bandy legs 
in wide pantaloons heretofore can 'now burst forth 
upon the sight of his adored in all the gorgeous loveli- 
ness and perfection of an attractive anatomy. 




MARIE TIOZE. 



(103) 



CHAPTER VIII. 



WITHIN THE WINGS. 



The green-room, except where stock companies pre- 
vail — and there are not more than three or four in the 




United States now — has passed out of the shadow of 
the rigorous rules that sometime ago were posted here, 
and that had to be observed. By this I do not mean 
(106) 



WITHIN TIIE WINGS. 



107 



that rules have been entirely clone away with behind the 
scenes ; but travelling companies are governed by their 
own rules, carry their own stage manager, prompter, 
etc., and the only persons that local green-room rules 
could apply to now-a-days would be the four or five 
poorly paid young girls who, in their desire to go on 
the stage and become stars, start and generally stay at 
the bottom of the ladder, where they are paid pitiful 
salaries and continue to "mash" wandering minstrels, 
or the equally poorly paid and badly treated members 
of some male chorus. These girls usually spend the 
lengthy leisure a performance gives them sitting de- 




A GREEN-ROOM TABLEAU. 

murely on chairs in the corner of the green-room until 
the call-boy sends them word that they are needed to 
fill up some silent gap in the entertainment. Beyond 
these there are few to be found in the green- room dur- 
ing a performance. Occasionally an actor will drop in 
to pace the floor as he mumbles his lines over, or an 
actress, who is tired from standing in the wings, or on 
the stage, will hurry in and drop to rest on the sofa. 
The side scenes, or "wings," as they are termed, are 
the places in which to find almost everybody who has 
any business around the stage of a theatre. Under 



108 IN THE WINGS. 

the stage, in a " music-room," the musicians may be 
found when they are not harassing the audience with 
some unanimously discordant air. 

Gathered together in the entrances and within easy 
call of the prompter, whose business it has recently 
become to mind everybody else's business, are the 
performers, male and female mingling together, waiting 
for their cue to go on. The absence of chairs makes 
it necessary for all to remain on their feet, and only 
when a friendly " property " that may be used for 
sedentary purposes is within reach will a weary actor 
or actress take possession of it. Enough has been 
said already about the general aspect of affairs behind 
the scenes and the groupings in the green-room. Now, 
let us turn our attention to some of the individuals and 
incidents of this remarkable little world. The sta^e 
prompter is, probably, as important a gentleman as we 
could first run against. The prompter stands at his 
desk at one side of the stage, with a book of the play 
before him during the entire performance. It is his 
business to furnish the players with their lines when 
memory fails them. He must be quick to give the 
performer the exact word that has thrown him off the 
track, and just as soon as an actor or actress looks ap- 
pealingly towards him he knows what it means — that 
the performer is " stuck " — and he must run to their 
aid at once. His position is almost as responsible as 
that of the prompter in the Japanese theatre, who 
goes from one actor to the other, during the whole 
performance, and, with a lantern placed up against the 
play-book, reads off the lines which the actor is ex- 
pected to repeat. He must be at the theatre during 
the morning rehearsals ; and he also writes out parts ; 
changes of scenes ; makes lists of the properties or 
articles needed ; and altogether, his position is nothing 



IN THE AVINGS. 



109 



like a sinecure. A rule of the theatre, that in many 
places, has glided quietly out of existence, is to the 
effect that nobody must lounge in the prompter's 




GETTING THEIR " LINES. 



corner. But they do. Many a fairy queen, with 
shining raiment and powerful wand, loiters around to 
catch a glimpse of the few lines she has to speak, 



110 



IN THE WINGS. 



while darling little princes in the nicest of tights, or 
pirates, or bandits, with symmetrical limbs fully dis- 
played, and the softest of hearts beating under their 
corsets, get alongside of him, and because they have 
had little parts to memorize, and have let them slip 
li^htlv and swiftlv bevond their recollection, tease the 
prompter to help them to regain the lost words. 




WINE IN THE WINGS. 

A veteran prompter, who has evidently seen a great 
deal of the world beyond the foot-lights, in giving his 
reminiscences, said: " Some actors boast that they 
never stick. No matter if they have totally forgotten 
their lines, they * say something,' as they phrase it, and 
I have never seen the difference noted by the audience 
yet. Once, while I was making the rounds of the 
Pacific coast, twenty years or so ago, I went to see 
a performance of ' Macbeth,' by the company of a 



IN THE WINGS. 1 1 1 

friend of mine in San Francisco. It was a tough com- 
pany, a band of regulation old-time barn stormers, 
and the fellow who played Macbeth was so far gone in 
the dreamy vacancy of whiskey that he ' gagged ' his 
part more than once in the first scene. Finally, in the 
middle of his second, he was also dead lost. He hesi- 
tated, but only for a moment. Then he threw his 
arms around Lady Macbeth' s waist, and drawing her 
to him, coolly said: * Let us retire, dearest chuck, 
and con this matter over in a more sequestered spot, 
far from the busy haunts of men. Here the walls and 
doors are spies, and our every word is echoed far and 
near. Come, then, let's away ! False heart must 
hide, you know, what false heart dare not show/ 
They made their exit in a roar of applause, and I 
thought, ' There's a man who has no use for a 
prompter, sure enough.' 

"All actors are not like him, however. Raw actors 
are the prompter's horror. The debutante is another. 
She will forget every line the moment she strikes the 
stage, and be so nervous, moreover, that she will not 
be able to repeat those the prompter reads to her. I 
remember one young lady who thought she had a mis- 
sion to play Ji{liet. She made her appearance, sup- 
ported by a country company , and lost every line, as 
usual . We prompted her through her first scene, some- 
how. When the balcony scene was on, her mother stood 
on the ladder behind her, reading her speeches word for 
word, which she repeated after her. But the old lady 
was a heavy weight, and the step-ladder was no longer 
in the flower of youth ; so, in the middle of the fare- 
well, it gave way. The old lady was tumbled forward 
against the ricketty staging of the balcony, and it fell 
against the set piece that masked it in from the audi- 
ence. So Juliet, mother, balcony, and all toppled 




I .,.:, ■ :'. : .v„A" A -J- ■. '...■ &'.■,■*■■> .? 



IMPROVING SPARE MOMENTS, 



(112) 



IX THE WINGS. 113 

down on JRomeo, and by the time he was taken from 




the wreck he was as mournful a lover as the play makes 
him out to be." 

Looking around among the players again we find a 



114 IN THE WINGS. 

fairy leaning up against some object with her lithe 
limbs crossed, and she putting in the spare time allowed 
her in doing crochet or some kindred work. Perhaps 
she is knitting a purse for some distant lover, or maybe 
it is a tiny pair of socks for the little baby that is wait- 
ing for her at home. For many of these youthful, 
charming, and heart-breaking fairies and fair bur- 
lesquers are married, and frequently their husbands 
are in the same company. A story is told of a well- 
known and popular actress who brings her husband 
with her to the theatre every night, and while the old 
man- — a dear, innocent and uncomplaining old fellow 
sits in the side scenes nursing baby with a bottle, on 
one knee, and holding an English pug on the other, 
while the mother is out before the admiring public 
throwing her arms about sqjne strange Romeo, and 
clinging to him with all the warmth and affection of 
the fair Juliet's young love. 

The story is told of a New York fireman, who made 
real love, and too much of it, on the stage. Accord- 
ing to the rules of the fire department there, a mem- 
ber of the department is kept on duty at every per- 
formance in the theatres. While there he has nothing 1 
to do except respond to any call of fire, and give his 
valuable services in suppressing it. But it is very 
seldom that his services are called into requisition, and 
consequently the position at the theatre is much sought 
after by the gallant fire laddies. As a rule, the mem- 
bers of the department are a fine body of men, but those 
detailed at the theatres are very fine-looking and con- 
sequently very popular with the actresses at the thea- 
tres. The natural result is that the fireman soon has 
a " mash," and having unrestricted liberties perambu- 
lates through the building without hindrance. Becom- 
ing well acquainted with the nooks and corners he is en- 




MAKING LOVE IN THE SIDE-SCENES. (H^) 



116 IN THE WINGS. 

abled to snatch a few moments' sweet converse with the 
object of his affections, and in a place where they can 
commune with one another uninfluenced by the presence 
of anyone. But recently the regular disappearance of 
the fireman of a certain theatre at a stated time became 
the subject of comment among the attaches, and an- 
other female admirer of the gallant fireman, actuated 
possibly by jealous motives, watched him receding 
from view and followed his footsteps silently. In an 
unfrequented nook among the ruins of ancient moun- 
tains, pillars and broad fields — on canvas ■ — stood the 
object of her disappointed affections, embracing the 
fair form of her rival and giving vent to the pent-up 
feelings of his heart, while she, coy, and dove-like, 
stood, blushingly receiving the compliments which 
were being showered upon her. This was too much 
for the slighted fair one, and the place that knew the 
loving hearts for many evenings is now vacant and 
ready for the occupancy of another loving couple. 

Another fire lad of the same department thought he 
smelt fire one night just before the performance began. 
He pried around through every nook and corner in the 
fulfilment of his duty, and at last was satisfied that he 
had found the place. He was not sufficiently well 
posted to know that he had located the incipient blaze 
in one of the ladies' dressing-rooms. So in he popped 
without giving any warning. The girls were dressing 
for the ballet and already one of them was in condition 
to get into her symmetrical. Imagine the consterna- 
tion of the girls at sight of the apparition in blue 
clothes, cap, and brass buttons. They hastily got 
behind towels and other articles within reach and set 
up a screech that came near creating a panic among the 
audience. The fire boy did not wait to find the origin 
of the smoke, and it took all the persuasive powers of 



IN THE WINGS. 117 

the manager and company to keep the girls from swear- 




ing out warrants for burglary or something of that kind 
against the luckless laddie. 

There are a great many other ludicrous things that 



118 IN THE WIXGS. 

have happened behind the scenes, and but few of 
which have reached the public. The legend about 
Atkins Lawrence's lion skin, which he wears when he 
plays Ingomar, and which was so heavily sprinkled 
with snuff as a preservative against moths that when 
Parthenia began to woo the barbarian chief and leant 
lovingly upon his shoulder she almost sneezed her 
head off before the alarmed audience, is told of Mary 
Anderson. The Milwaukee Sun printed something 
about the same actress, that whether true or false is 
equally good. The writer says : — <s It is well known 
that Miss Anderson is addicted to the gum-chewing 
habit, and that when she goes upon the stage she 
sticks her chew of gum on an old castle painted on the 
scenery. There was a wicked young man playing a 
minor part in the play who had been treated scornfully 
by Mary, as he thought, and he had been heard to say 
he would make her sick. He did. He took her chew 
of gum and spread it out so it was as thin as paper, 
then placed a chew of tobacco inside, neatly wrapped 
it up, and stuck it back on the old castle. Mary came 
off, when the curtain went down, and going up to the 
castle she bit like a bass. Putting the gum, which she 
had no idea was loaded, into her mouth, she mashed it 
between her ivories and rolled it as a sweet morsel 
under her tongue. It is said by those who happened 
to be behind the scenes, that when the tobacco began 
to get in its work there was the worst transformation 
scene that ever appeared on the stage. The air, one 
supe said, seemed to be full of fine cut tobacco and 
spruce gum, and Mary stood there and leaned against 
a painted rock, a picture of homesickness. She was 
pale about the gills, and trembled like an aspen leaf 
shaken by the wind. She was calm as a summer's 
morning, and while concealment like a worm in 



IN THE WINGS. 119 

an apple, gnawed at her stomach, and tore her cor- 
set strings, she did not upbraid the wretch who had 
smuggled the vile pill into her countenance. All she 
said, as she turned her pale face to the painted ivy on 
the rock, and grasped a painted mantel piece with her 
left hand, as her right hand rested on her heaving 
stomach, was, ' I die by the hand of an assassin.' 
Women can't be too careful where they put their 
gum. " 

Actors are not fonder of or indulge more in liquor 
than any other class. Occasionally you will find a 
member of the profession whose passion for the ar- 
dent will lead him far enough to disappoint the public. 
Joe Emmet's indiscretions in this direction gave him 
world-wide notoriety, and for this reason only do I 
mention them here. He is a favorite everywhere and 
for that reason the entire public regretted his one fault 
among so many agreeable virtues. But Joe has occa- 
sioned many comical situations in the side scenes while 
actors and manager were plying him with seltzer, 
bromide of potassium and other soberatives in order 
to get him to begin or finish a play, when there was a 
jammed house waiting to applaud him at every turn in 
" Fritz." But Emmet has crossed the Kubicon again 
and once more his worldfui of friends rejoice in his 
happiness and growing fortune. He is not the only 
one in the profession who has been addicted to the cup 
that cheers and inebriates at the same time. I have 
heard that a pretty and popular soubrette must have 
her glass of brand}^ between the acts, and that an actor 
already at the top of the ladder is succumbing to the 
seductive and rosy liquid. Still liquor has not made 
nearly the number of victims in the ranks of the 
theatrical class that it has in other professions, and it 
is only alluded to here to illustrate a comical incident 



120 



IN THE WINGS. 



that once occurred during the engagement of a bur- 
lesque combination in Kansas City. It was not known 
until six o'clock at night that the comedian of the 
comedy was in a sad state of intoxication somewhere 
through the town. Parties were sent out at once 




SOBERING 



COMEDIAN. 



to look him up. They did not succeed in finding him 
until 7 : 30 when they hurried him to the theatre. It 
was a terrible job to get him into his stage-clothes and 
to keep his head steady and his eyes open long enough 



IX THE WINGS. 



121 



to allow his friends to make him up for his part. By 
the time this had been done the impatient audience 
shouted and whistled and stamped so violently that at 
last the manager was obliged to ring the curtain up. 
Mr. Comedian was in the wings reluctantly accepting 
the remedies provided by his friends, while they waited 
for his cue to go on. He was fairly sober when he 




M'CULLOUGH AS " YIRGINIUS. 



reached the presence of the audience and although he 
betrayed his condition slightly, few in the house 
knew enough about the trouble that had been taken 
with him in order that the manager might keep his 
word with the public. It is needless to add that Mr. 
Comedian was very sorry, and sick when he got sober. 



CHAPTER IX. 



STAGE CHARMS AXD OMENS. 



The night the Southern Hotel burned down in St. 
Louis, I was standing at the ladies' entrance when Kate 
Claxton, whose presence is now always regarded in a 
city as ominous of a conflagration, came down through 
the fire and smoke in her night dress and was hurried 
across the street and out of danger by a gentleman who 
lent her his overcoat while she made her way to 
another hotel. There were seventeen lives lost that 
terrible night, and a young and beautiful actress — 
Frankie McLellan — in a frantic effort to escape the 
flames, jumped from a three story window and had her 
face marked for life by the fall. Just as soon as peo- 
ple got over the horror of the first news of the catas- 
trophe, gossip turned to theorizing and from that 
diversant stories were told concerning the prominent 
people who figured in the calamity. Then it became 
known that Milton Nobles had lost a brand new pair of 
lavender trousers, in the pockets of which were several 
hundred dollars that "The Phoenix" had brought 
him that same evening. Then too, the narrow escape 
of Eose Osborne, of the Olympic stock company, was 
recited ; but prominent above all, Miss Kate Claxton' s 
presence in the hotel was dwelt upon, and, as she had 
already fairly earned the unanimous reputation that has 
since followed her, her name became part of the his- 
tory of the conflagration, as it has been associated with 
everv conflagration that occurred in her vicinage since. 

(122) 



STAGE CHATIMS AND OMENS 



123 



She is rather tin gallantly and untruly styled the " Fire 
Fiend," and all sorts of predictions are made about 
the theatre she plays in, the hotel she hasher rooms at, 
and the very town and county in which she is tempo- 




KATE CLAXTON. 



rarily domiciled. But Kate Claxton, who by the way 
is Mrs. Stevenson, is not the first person in her pro- 
fession to have acquired such an unenviable reputation. 
Thomas S. Hamblin, an actor and manager of the early 
half of the present century, who came from England in 



124 STAGE CHARMS AXD OMENS. 

1825 to star in " Shakespeare," was followed by fire even 
more relentlessly than Miss Claxton has been. No less 
than four theatres burned under his management, and 
it was generally said when he undertook to open or 
run a place of amusement that from that moment it 
was fated to the flames. Hamblin figures conspicu- 
ously in the history of the Bowery. He died in 1854. 

The sailor who braves the dangers of the deep is al- 
ways blindly superstitious. There is something in the 
vastness of the ocean, in its misty immensity, in its 
magic mirage, its wonders and its terrors, that puzzles 
the mind and sets fire to the imagination of poor Jack, 
and even bewilders his superior officers. The artist 
who undertakes to sail before the public and to amuse 
it for a living is quite as much at sea as your genuine 
Jack Tar. He or she finds himself or herself on a 
veritable ocean, beset by dangers, surrounded by un- 
known and fickle conditions of atmosphere and phe- 
nomena. All the logic of the dry land is of no avail 
in such a situation. The relations of cause and effect 
are broken up. Magic is the only excuse for the arri- 
val of the unexpected. The seemingly impossible in 
results is always the most possible. Once embarked 
in the dramatic sea, no one can tell where the voyage 
may end, or what it may bring forth. A shipwreck 
on auriferous rocks may prove a success. 

Triumph may come from ruin ; happiness from dan- 
ger, and the longest voyage and the richest freight are 
often given the most leaky and shallow craft. There 
is no knowing which boat will float the longest on the 
dramatic sea — the best equipped or the most shaky 
and flimsy. So it is no wonder that actors are all 
superstitious. They have no compass even to guide 
them when beset by the varying winds of public opin- 
ion. The impossible is always sure to meet them ; so 



STAGE CHABMS AM) OMENS. 125 

they lire always on the lookout for magic, and depend 
in secret quite as much upon their simple necromancy 
as upon their talent or their study. Every star has, 
so to speak, a fetich that insures success, or goes 
through an imaginary formula to invoke prosperity. 
The public is constantly under the influence of the 
voudoo arts of actors, and incantations and mystic 
signs rule the world of Thespis and enslave the public 
without its knowledge. Some of these fancies and 
formulae of intelligent actors are, indeed, more simple 
and childlike than those that characterize poor Jack of 
the briny deep. 

Imagine, for instance, an actor like John Mc- 
Cullough refusing to approach a theatre except by one 
route (the one he first takes, no matter how round- 
about) from night to night, for fear of breaking the 
charm of success. Imagine, too, a lot of other trifling 
things that beset him — signs, omens and the like. 
If he stumbles when he first enters a scene it is a sign 
of good luck. If he receives faint applause in the first 
scene he is sure to succeed, amid thunderous plaudits, 
in the last ; if Forrest's sword, used in the Gladiator, 
becomes dim by damp air or other cause, it is a sign 
of lack of fervor in the audience of the evening, while, 
on the contrary an extraordinary brightness of the 
weapon is a sure sign of great success. If a negro 
should cross his path while he is on his way to a per- 
formance, that is a never-failing omen of a prosperous 
engagement, while to encounter a cross-eyed woman 
(not a man, for strabismus in that sort of creature 
does not affect John, probably because it is only the 
woman he looks at), is a sure sign if not of failure, 
at least of annoyance to himself and coldness on the 
part of his audience. The Macbeth music is, of 
course, his great bugbear, as it is with all actors. 




(126) 



THE LATE YENIE CLANCIE, 



STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS. 127 

No success could attend any of his performances if 
any one were to hum or whistle the witches' chorus in 
the wings or the dressing-rooms. Any poor, inexpe- 
rienced devil who might try it would find John, and, 
in fact, all the company, wrestling with him, and him- 
self lying in the gutter at the back door before he had 
warbled through two bars of the fatal music. This is, 
in the opinion of every actor, a sure invocation of dis- 
aster. Under the malign influence of this melodic 
devilishness either the theatre will be burned down 
(for, if we are to believe the actors and stage tradi- 
tion, every theatre that was ever burned in this coun- 
try was put under the spell of fire by some singer or 
whistler of the witches' chorus), or salaries will not be 
paid, or the manager will bring his season to an early 
and disastrous end. Something ill is sure to happen 
if the Macbeth music is heard, and John shares that 
belief in common with even the humblest Roman of 
them all who parades his scraggy shanks nightly in 
ridiculous contrast with the heroic le<xs of the traofe- 
dian. 

John T. Raymond, while believing faithfully in all 
the regular signs and omens of the stage, has his own 
special claims to " hog 'em," using the stage vernacu- 
lar. He has only one suit of clothes for Colonel 
Sellers, and would not have any other under any cir- 
cumstances. It would change his luck from good to 
bad. 

" Remark," he says, "there never was a success 
continued where a play was entirely re-costumed. 
The public interest began to flag always in some mys- 
terious way from the time the new dresses came on. 
It is the old story of old wine in new bottles. The 
wine will burst the bottles. There's going to be no 
burst with my wine. I stick to my old clothes as long- 
as they will stick to me." 



128 



STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS. 



He has also a lucky $5 gold piece, which he always 
carries in his vest pocket on the stage, whatever part 




CATHERINE LEWIS. 



he is playing, and when he is nervous and fearful of 
lack of appreciation he has only to rub his magic coin 



STAGE CHARMS A>'D OMENS. 129 

to make everything lovely. In getting out of bed he 
will not slip out with the left foot first, lest he may 
have bad luck all the day. His dreams decide his ac- 
ceptance of a play, and when he is puzzled between 
two methods of working up a " point," he is perfectly 
satisfied to settle it by the toss up of a cent. 

Joe Jefferson is also impressed with the magical 
potency of old clothes. He has never changed his 
first " Kip Van Winkle " suit, but he has been forced 
to have it patched and renovated. His hat, wig, beard 
and " trick " rifle — the one that falls to pieces after 
his long sleep — are the same that he used when he made 
his great success in the part in, London fifteen years 
ago. He mislaid this gun last season, just before he 
played at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, and was forced to 
set another. That en^ao-ement was his first failure, 
and a bad one. He has found the old rifle, and, the 
charm being now complete again, he has opened the 
season with a very successful week in Brooklyn. Joe 
would break an engagement in any theatre if a dog 
were to walk across the stage at the first rehearsal. 
That is a sure sign of death, loss, or fire, as every 
actor knows. A cat parading the coulisses or walking 
with dainty tread across the scene, however (even at 
an evening performance), would be hailed by him and 
colleagues with delight as an unfailing sio*n of pros- 

O O OCX 

perity, health and renown. 

Sothern felt that he was sure to fail with his audi- 
ence if his valet, by an accident, handed him his wig 
before his coat was on, while, if he put it on his head 
at the last moment, and not before the voices of the 
call-boy was heard summoning all on for his first scene, 
he had " ^ot 'em dead to rights." 

Florence, like Raymond, carries a lucky $5 gold 
piece, and believes the charm of his popularity reposes 



130 STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS. 

in the fact that he always j3Uts on his costnmes in a 
never-varying order, and never changes his old brushes 
and articles of " make-up." He, too, is afraid of the 
necromantic powers of the evil-omened dog, and be- 
lieves in the magic spells of fairy grimalkin. If the 
orchestra plays a waltz between the first and second 
acts of his piece, success is more likely than ever to seal 
his efforts of the evening. 

Mrs. Florence, on the contrary, does not believe in 
old clothes, but quite the reverse. She thinks, how- 
ever, that birds (canaries, or any other variety) are sure 
to bring bad luck, and will not play in the company 
where there is a cross-eyed girl. The cross-eyed man 
doesn't count. If the prompter should tear a page of 
manuscript accidentally, or, moreover, if the page 
should contain the name or a speech of the character 
she is acting, there is no use in hoping for a great 
furor that evening, for there will be nothing but dis- 
appointments in the making of points and contretemps 
in the management of the stage. If the prompter 
turns out the foot-lights or a row of border-lights, 
swift disaster is sure to come on the theatre. This 
was never known to fail in her experience. 

Booth will never go on the stage, no matter how 
late or hurried he may be, without first pacing three 
time across the green-room, mumbling over not the 
first, but the very last speech of the piece he is to play 
that night. Then he walks on, sure of his triumph. 
If he should fail in his formula, the audience would be 
cold and unappreciative. It has been his custom to 
have Desdemona's couch set in the second entrance on 
the stage, left in the last scene of " Othello." Ac- 
cording to the old style, the couch should be set in the 
centre door, behind curtains, exactly in front of the 
audience. Booth believes in signs, however, and 



STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS, 



i:;i 



should he consent to have Desdemona slumber in any 
other place than U. E. L. he would lose his charm in 
the character of Iago. 

Frank Chanfrau believes in the efficacy of old 




CHANFRAU. 



clothes. He has only one suit in ITit, and his success 
is unvarying in that piece. He hates dogs on the 
stage, believes in cats, knows birds are bad luck, is 
convinced that a house decorated in a prevailing hue 



132 STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS. 

of decided blue is sure of ill-fortune, and shudders at 
the mere mention of the Macbeth music. He has 
steered clear of all these evil influences during his 
stage career, and has been uniformly successful. 

Oliver Doud Byron has a special claim in addition 
to the regular superstitions of his class. He has a 
certain tattoo mark of India ink on his right forearm. 
When he rolls up his sleeves for his " terrible com- 
bat" in the last act of " Across the Continent," he 
must uncover that mark without looking at it, or his 
fetich is not complete, and the charm of his prosperity 
will be broken. 

Charles Thorne believes his success lies in the fact 
that he always steps on the stage in the first scene 
with his right foot foremost, and keeps it in advance 
until he has delivered his first speech. This done, he 
is safe and sure of a " walk over " before his critics. 
Once or twice he has inadvertently stepped Out with 
his left, and on these occasions he has failed, or the 
piece has fallen flat. Such an accident happened him 
on the first night of "Lost Children." Manager Pal- 
nier, of the Union Square, who has also become a vic- 
tim of stage superstitions, is fearful of Thorne stepping 
out with his terrible left foot on a first night, just out 
of retaliation for some slight or disagreement. Thorne, 
possessing this magic power for good or evil, not at 
his fingers' ends, but at the ends of his toes, is a ter- 
ror to the establishment, and on first nights is treated 
with distinguished consideration by the entire com- 
pany. No one gets in his way when he is about to 
make his stage entrance on a first night, lest he may 
be thrown out of step and advance with sinister effect 
upon the scene. Thome's right foot once -put forward, 
everyone breathes freer and plays with greater vim. 
The critical point of every new play, therefore, lies, 



STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS. 

though the critics may not think it, in the malign or 
favorable magic of Thome's feet, according as he puts 
the in forward. 

Adelaide Neilson was as superstitious as all actresses 
are. Her evenly-balanced beauty and brains did not 
free her from the slavery of omens. She carried about 
with her, ever since her first London success in Juliet, 
a lucky silken rag — a dingy, straw-colored drapery -•» 
which she insisted upon hanging over the- railing of 
the balcony when Juliet breathes her complaints to 
the moon. Without this, the fair Adelaide was sure 
she could not succeed in the scene in any part of the 
world. She brought the silken rug across the water 
with her again and again. The drapery was somewhat 
faded and tattered from long service in the two worlds, 
but she still clung fondly to it, and said it was pos- 
sessed of all its olden magic. 

Lotta sleeps three hours by daylight, but if she 
should wake up ten minutes before the usual time (just 
the time to rush to the theatre) the fates are against 
her, and she will not do well that evening. Tf any one 
whistles in a dressino-room within her hearing while 
she is donning her costume, she is sure the person is 
" whistling away her luck," and the house is going to 
be bad. 

Fanny Davenport would not, for any consideration, 
miss rearranoino; her wis: before the screen-room mirror 
just previous to going on the stage. She has a regular, 
unvarying' formula to go through to guarantee success. 
She first presses her hands to the sides of her head to 
be sure the springs are firmly fixed (although she has 
just had her dresser make that sure in her dressing- 
room), then gives the " bang " three smart tugs, puffs 
up the frizzes with a nervous twitch of her fingers, 
presses the entire wig down from the top of her head, 



134 



STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS. 



gives her silken trail a final kick to induce it to unfold 
itself, and then rushes pell mell to the stage in answer 
to the alarming cry of " stage waiting." Without this 
formality she would not be herself the whole evening. 




FANNY DAVENPORT. 

Clara Morris believes in the efficacy of a small medi- 
cine vial, which she carries (empty) through every 
scene, she says, through habit, though it is fair to 
presume, through superstition. Without the vial she 
could not get along. 



STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS, 



135 



Neilson also had a vial — a special one — /Inch she 
insisted should only be used for Romeo's poison po- 
tion. She would handle no other, and has been known 
to have the bill changed because the vial was mislaid, 
and would not allow " Romeo and Juliet" to be put 
up for performance until it was found. 

Frank Mayo thinks his magic lies in an old fur cap 
and a hare's foot, 
for rouging, which 
he had ever since 
he has been on the 
stage. 

Boucicault trem- 
bles and is sure of 
failure for any one 
of his pieces which 
is greeted with 
commendation by 
all the actors with- 
out a dissenting 
voice. If the play- 
ers condemn his 
piece at the rehear- 
sals, he is sure the 
audience will like 
it. But in any event] 
no play of his can 
be a success unless 
he tears off the cov- 
er to the first act, and makes away with the title page 
at the last rehearsal. 

Maude Granger has a certain magic smelling-bottle 
which she puts to her nostrils just before going on the 
stage. 




DION BOUCICAULT. 



Maggie 



Mitchell attributes her success in " Fan- 



136 



STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS. 



chon " to an old pair of shoes which she wears in that 

piece. 

Eliza Weathersby hates birds, doesn't like whistlers, 

and has for her special charm an embroidered rose, 

which always appears on her dress or tights, according 

to the style of part she may be playing. 

Paola-Marie, the 
little Parisienne of 
Grau's opera 
bouffe, has a pet 
pug dog which she 
always fondles at 
the side-scenes for 
luck, before going 
on the stage. This, 
too, to the intense 
horror of the rest 
of the company, 
who think do^s in 
theatres bad luck. 
Sara Jewett im- 
agines that she com- 
mands success and 
enslaves her au- 
diences by walking 
through her posi- 
tions on the stage 
her first scene 




MRS. BOUCICAULT. 



Ill 



every night before the curtain is rung up for the play. 
The managers, too, share this weakness of their 
actors. None of them would change their ticket- 
boxes for fear of a change of luck. When they move 
they take their ticket-boxes with them. Wallack has 
the same boxes that were used at the doors of his 
father's theatre years ago, and Daly has those which 



STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS. 137 

received the pasteboards during his first season of suc- 
cess. When Tony Pastor removed from the Bowery 
to Broadway he took his boxes over there, and has 
them with him now in his tour over the country. 
With all our modern innovations and realism, we have 
not made any inroads on the folk-lore of the drama. 
The theatre is still fairy-land, and its creatures, though 
not fairies themselves, commune with them closely. 

Actors like many other people have a perfect horror 
of the number thirteen. The only man in the profes- 
sion who openly defies the superstition attaching to 
this number is John R. Rogers, the manager of the 
" My Sweetheart " Company, of which Minnie Palmer 
and Robert E. Graham are the star features. Rogers, it 
is said, not only got together a company of thirteen peo- 
ple, in which the thirteen letters of Mr. Graham's name 
stood out in uninviting prominence ; but he began his 
season on Friday, the 13th of the month, and in other 
ways wooed a dire and speedy fate for himself and his 
people ; but good luck appears to have attended him, 
and he is still defiant as ever of the terror-laden and 
ominous number. In contradistinction to Mr. Roger's 
success, the failure of another combination may be 
given. Frank L. Gardner, who has thirteen letters in 
his name, brought out the play " Legion of Honor," 
whose title is composed of exactly thirteen letters, and 
had Samuel W. Piercy, — who died last winter in 
Boston, while supporting Edwin Booth in his tour, — 
for leading man, and by doing so freighted down his 
enterprise with another ill-starred feature, for Mr. 
Piercy' s name contained thirteen letters. The play 
failed, and the superstitious people of the profession 
immediately attributed the failure to the presence of 
too many baker's dozens in the organization. A cer- 
tain well-known prima donna whose engagement was 



138 STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS. 

to begin on the 13th of the month went to the irn- 
pressario and begged to have the date changed ; she 
said she knew she would have no luck if she began to 
sing on the date provided for her ; besides that her 
friends had persuaded her that fortune would only 
frown upon her if she made her first appearance on the 
13th. The 12th was Friday, another day fraught 
with frightful evil to the singing and acting fraternity, 
so rather than make an unlucky beginning, the prima 
donna opened on the 11th, and sang two nights for 
nothing, although two nights' warbling under her con- 
tract meant an amount of money that would make a 
poor man's head swim. 

The New York Dramatic News in a late number 
contained a funny story about Harry Courtaine and 
John E. Ince, both gentlemen well and favorably 
known in the profession. Mr. Ince had solemnly pro- 
fessed his non-belief in good or bad luck, after which 
he was invited by Mr. Courtaine to walk with him. 
The News tells the story in this happy style : To a 
query as to where he was going, Mr. Courtaine replied 
that he was to make an en^a^ement for the corning; 
season with a gentleman now awaiting him at the 
Union Square Hotel, " and I want a witness," he said, 
" but I wouldn't have one of those superstitious fel- 
lows with me for all the world. They make me 
ashamed of myself with their besotted — " 

Mr. Courtaine stopped suddenly and turned deadly 
pale. "Here, here!" he cried, "cross fingers, 
quick!" and seizing Mr. luce's hand, he crossed the 
forefinger of his own over it while a tramp with one 
arm slouched by them. " I saw him over my left 
shoulder, too," murmured Mr. Courtaine. " Dear 
me ! dear me ! how exceedingly annoying ! 3? 

"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Ince, whom the 



STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS. 



139 



performance of his companion had thrown into a pro- 
found amazement. " Don't you feel well? What 
is it?" 

" Nothing," replied Mr. Courtaine, in some confu- 
sion. "A slight twinge of my old gout. Those fel- 



_ 




. ■ 
— ^. — m — i 



MAUD GRANGER, 



lows on the square are enough to give a man the colic, 
with their eternal talk about Jonahs, unlucky houses, 
hoodoo managers and the like. I 'don't know any- 
thing I detest more than superstition," said Mr. Cour- 



140 STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS. 

taine, with indignant fervor. "I think it is a lower 
and more debased vice than habitual drunkenness. 
If there was a law passed to make it a capital offence, 
I'm d — d if I wouldn't serve as hangman without ask- 
ing a cent pay." 

At this juncture an old woman, enveloped in an 
odorous combination of rags and liquor, seized Mr. 
Courtaine by the sleeve and rolled two eyes, which 
squinted across at each other almosi at right-angles, 
towards the sky, as she whined : — 

" Please, good gentleman, a penny to buy a poor 
widow bread. Only a penny, dear, handsome gentle- 
man, and God go with you." 

Mr. Courtaine dove into his pocket to respond to this 
artful appeal, and as he did so, glanced at the old 
woman. Then he began a performance which plunged 
his companion in a stupor of wonder. Crossing his 
forefingers, he deliberately spat upon the pavement 
over them, and then turning in a circle, repeated the 
expectoration at each of the four points of the com- 
pass. This accomplished, he mopped the perspiration 
from his pallid brow, and shuddered visibly. "It's 
Friday, too," he muttered. " D — n it all ! I might 
have known it." 

" Known what? " asked Mr. Ince. 

"Let's go down to Theiss's and get a beer," said 
Mr. Courtaine abruptly and irrelevantly. 

" You'd better see your man first," suggested the 
prudent Mr. Ince. 

"Oh, no v He can wait; besides I think it's too 
late to catch him in now. I'll hunt him up to-mor- 
row. Come along." 

The libation performed, Mr. Ince suggested that 
they should drop in at the matinee at Pastor's. Mr. 
Courtaine favored a stroll. Mr. Ince suggested that 






STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS. Ill 

his programme would turn out the most pleasing one, 
and Mr. Courtaine said: "Hold on; we can easily 
see ;" and producing a half-dollar he flipped it, ask- 
ing, "What is it?" 

" Heads," answered Mr. Ince. 

"It's tail," remarked Mr. Courtaine. " So the 
stroll will turn out best. Let's be moving." 

They moved along, and as they passed a fruit stand 
Mr. Ince remarked: "Hello! there are some straw- 
berries . ' ' 

" Ze first-a of ze season a-Signore," said the Neapoli- 
tan nobleman, who presided over the destinies of the 
stand, with a bow of invitation, " ze very first-a, only 
feefty cent-a ze box-a." 

" By Jove ! " cried Mr. Courtaine, picking out three 
of the finest and leaving the box a quarter empty, 
" now, then, Ince, make a wish." 

"What for? " demanded Mr. Ince, making a raid on 
the box on his own account. 

"Never mind," replied Mr. Courtaine, evasively, 
" only whenever you eat new fruit or vegetables make 
a wish." 

And he posted the strawberries into his oratorical 
orifice, and walked off, leaving the fruit vender foam- 
ing at the mouth, and snarling " corpo di diavola! 
zese actor 'ave-a ze sheek-a of a policeman. Oh ! 
Madonna mia! Eef zem boys 'ad not steal-a my 
club!" 

The stroll was varied by no further incidents except 
that Mr. Courtaine walked a block around to avoid 
passing a drunken man, and nearly lost his life snatch- 
ing a cast horseshoe up from in front of a street-car. 
As they turned homeward Mr. Courtaine's eyes singled 
out a lady approaching with an armful of bundles, and 
he commenced a species of maniac gavotte, waving his 



142 STAGE CHARMS AND OMENS. 

hands at her and shouting: "Go into the street. 
Hey ! Hey ! look out for the ladder !" 

And when in spite of his adjurations, Mrs. Cour- 
taine — for the lady was none other — walked under a 
ladder leaning against the side of a rising building. He 
sank upon a row of beer kegs and fastened a cumula- 
tive grip on Mr. luce's arm, exclaiming — " Did you 
witness it wasn't my fault? I warned her in time, 
didn't I?" 

9r ^P * *F «F %F * '£ ^£ V 

" Do you remember my wife walking under a ladder 
yesterday?" observed Mr. Oourtaine to Mr. Ince on 
the morrow. 

"Yes, what of it?" 

"Well, when we got home we found the cat had 
killed the canary bird — killed and ate it all but the 
tail feathers," said Mi*. Oourtaine triumphantly. 
" Now what do you think of that? Here come around 
to Theiss's or we'll have those fellows around us with 
their infernal low-minded superstitions again." 




M LLE MONTROSE. 



(143) 



CHAPTEK X. 



NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 



Some very queer things happen behind the scenes, 
and even on the stage in full view of the audience — 
occurrences that often mar the pleasure of the play 
for the people in the auditorium, and raise the wrath 
of the performer. Anything out of the usual run 
of business that occurs behind the scenes throws the 
players off the track frequently. There is a great deal 
of work going on at all times, out of sight or knowl- 
edge of the audience, and a slight disturbance may be 
an interruption fraught with dire disaster. There are 
actors and actresses in the wings, often, completing the 
memorization of their parts — " winging" parts, as it 
is called — or it may be going over their lines again, 
if they are not confident that they have full possession 
of them ; and to these people, of course, an inter- 
ruption is a matter of the merest moment. Actors 
and actresses have always been credited with good 
memories, but even the best memory may sometimes 
be thrown off the track, and, indeed, sometimes is, 
by an untoward or startling incident. 

Speaking of memory, reminds me that an actor 
once memorized an entire newspaper, when they were 
smaller than now, in a single night. The actor was a 
man named Lyon, who was playing small parts through 
the country. An English actor committed the contents 
of the London Times, advertisements and all, within 
a week, besides studying a new part for every night, 

(144) 



NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 145 

The feat was accomplished on a wager. An actor in 
London, sat through a play, and although he had 



I 




LIZZIE M CALL. 

never seen it before, could repeat every line and word 

10 



146 NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 

of it when he got home. He sat down and wrote it 
out, and the copy thus written was used for the per- 
formance of the play in New York. Many readers 
will recollect the New York couple prosecuted by the 
Madison Square Theatre Company for selling copies 
of "Hazel Kirke " to companies that had no right 
to play the drama. The wife, it was explained, went 
to the theatre, sat the play out a few times, and dic- 
tated the lines to her husband from memory. She 
had been an actress. There are many other remark- 
able instances of swift and retentive memories in the 
profession, but one of the most astonishing of all 
these feats is what is known as " winging a part," an 
expression I have used before in this chapter. This 
consists in ^oing on the stao-e without having studied 
the lines at all, the actor carrying the book in his 
pocket, and pulling it out every time he gets out 
of sight of the audience, studying the part in the 
"wings" until he receives his cue to go on again. 
This method of going through the part continues 
during the performance, the actor speaking the lines 
to the best of his ability, and following the text as 
closely as possible. 

Returning to the subject of the chapter, there are 
several instances of actors and actresses, prominent and 
minor, receiving their death strokes on the stage while 
playing. Mistress Woffington, known as "lovely 
Peggy,' ' while playing at Co vent Garden, London, May 
3, 1757, fell to the stage at the end of the fourth act of 
"As You Like it," in which she was playing Rosalind, 
and after muttering "O God! O God!" was car- 
ried home to die after a lingering confinement of three 
years to her bed. George Frederick Cooke received 
his death stroke in New York, while playing Sir 
Giles Overreach, and Edmund Kean died in England 



NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 



147 



under similar circumstances. The elder Kean and his 
son Charles were playing together, the former having 
the role of Othello, the latter that of lago. The date was 
March 25, 1833. The event, says a chronicler, created 
great excitement among play-goers ; the house was 
crammed. Kean, who had worn himself out with dis- 
sipation, went through the part, " dying as he went," 
until he came to the "Farewell," and the strangely 
appropriate words, " Othello's occupation's gone." 
Then he gasped for breath and fell upon his son's 
shoulder, moaning, " I am dying — speak to them for 
me ! " And so the curtain descended upon him — for- 
ever. His wife had separated from him. " Come 
home to me ; forget and forgive ! " he wrote her after 
he had been conveyed to Eichmond. And she came. 
An hour before he died he sprang out of bed, exclaim- 
ing, "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" 
and he expired with the dying words of Octavian, 

" Farewell, Flo Floranthe ! " upon his lips. This 

was on May 15, 1833, and he was buried in Eich- 
mond churchyard. Instances of the same appalling 
kind might be multiplied, but it is not the purpose of 
the writer to cover the stage with gloom, or to cause 
death to masquerade any more than is absolutely nec- 
essary before the foot-lights. More interest will be 
felt, and the heart will be lighter and the appetite 
better, if we turn to the ludicrous incidents that have 
caused audiences ready to shed tears over a tragedy, to 
turn from the lachrymose attitude to one which might 
be represented as laughter holding both his sides. 
Sol Smith tells a funny story about his earliest ex- 



periences on the 



stage 



how he stole in through the 



back door before the performance, and hid in what he 
thought was a chest, but which turned out to be the 
coffin used in the play that evening, and when it was 




(148) 



" PIN UP MY SKIRTS, 



NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 149 

carried out on the stage young Smith was so terrified 
that he pushed up the lid and bounded out, to the sur- 
prise of both actors and audience. N. M. Ludlow, 
who w^as Smith's partner in the theatrical business, re- 
lates a somewhat similar incident about himself. 

The awkward position of a " masher " who gets into 
the " wings " by some hook or crook is often extremely 
laughable. I saw a serio-comic vocalist — as the 
songstresses of the variety stage are named — astonish 
a well-dressed and admiring gentleman who was loung- 
ing around at his leisure, — having in some mysterious 
manner passed the stage door-keeper, — by handing 
him a pin and remarking, " Pin up my skirts." The 
man's eye-glass was knocked out of place by the im- 
pertinence of the demand, but he took the pin and 
obeyed the lady's command, and this, too, notwith- 
standing a second female in tights, was near by, who 
could have done the job a thousand times better. It 
was the sweet singer's little joke, though. 

Charlotte Cushman and her sister were playing in 
Trenton, New Jersey, one night. The bill announced 
was " Romeo and Juliet," with Miss Cushman in her 
afterwards famous impersonation of the male character 
and her sister as Juliet. The ball-room of the town 
which was used as a theatre, when occasion required, 
was sadly lacking in scenery and properties. The sis- 
ters went to work, however, and succeeded in getting 
together everything they needed for the performance, 
• except the balcony in the garden scene. After looking 
around they found an old bed-quilt, patched, and 
abounding in numerous colors ; it was arranged that a 
colored bell-boy from an adjacent hotel should, while 
stationed in the side-scenes, out of view, hold up one 
end of the quilt while the fair Juliet supported the 
other. The boy was on hand in the evening, and 



150 NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 

everything went swimmingly until towards the end of 







ANNIE PIXLEY AS " m'lISS." 

the scene, and in a most tender part, the darkey stuck 
his head out from the side and said: "I say, Miss 



NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 



151 



Gushing, 1 hear my bell ringin' an' Ize obliged to let 
my side ob de house drap ! " He dropped the quilt ; 
and not only the balcony, but "the house" — the 




THE CALL-BOY S REVENGE. 

audience — came down, and that brought the scene to 
an abrupt and ridiculous end. 



152 NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 

Another occasion that was a source of infinite amuse- 
ment to an audience that had been fully worked up to 
tragic interest in the play of «i Hamlet," occurred at 
Baltimore, Maryland, a short time ago. The actor 
cast for King Claudius had given some offence to the 
call-boy — treated him badly in the presence of the 
company — so the boy made up his mind to have am- 
ple revenge. He got a needle, fitted a long piece of 
thread in it, and then placed it in the cushion chair 
that answered for the King's throne, in such a way 
that when the time arrived, by a simple jerk of the 
string he might move the needle skyward. He waited 
until Claudius was supposed to be most interested in 
the scene before the players, when jerk went the thread, 
and King Claudius, with an alacrity unbecoming roy- 
alty, bounded out of his chair as quickly as if he had 
suddenly sat down upon the sharp end of a lightning 
rod. He dropped his sceptre and shouting " Ouch ! " 
and nursing the injured part of his anatomy, jumped 
and danced around as if he had just caught sight of 
Hamlet's father's ghost. There was an interruption 
to the scene that the audience filled in with boisterous 
laughter. After the act the King, instead of sending 
one of his officers or guards for the call-boy, as be- 
fitted his exalted station, went scouring around the 
scenery himself, muttering the wildest threats and ap- 
plying names to that poor boy that he could hardly 
have won for himself if he lived to be a thousand years 
old. It is hardly necessary to say that the call-boy did 
not wait around until the end of that act. 

Mrs. Farrel, who was an actress of ability in her 
time, after being hissed in the part of Zaira, the 
heroine of " The Mourning Bride," and particularly in 
the dying scene, rose from the stage, and, approaching 
the foot-lights, expressed her regret at not having mer- 



NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 153 

ited the applause of the audience, and explained that 
she had only accepted the part to oblige a friend, and 
hoped she would be excused for not playing it better. 
After this little speech she once more assumed a re- 
cumbent position, and was covered by the attendants 
with a black veil. 

On one occasion a danseuse was listening to the pro- 
testations of an elderly lover, who was on the point of 
kissing her hand, when, as he stooped down his wig 
caught in the spangles of her dress. At that moment 
she was called to the stage, and made her appearance be- 
fore the audience amid general laughter and applause ; 
for on the front of her dress was the old beau's wig 
or scalp, hanging like a trophy from her belt. The 
applause was renewed when a bald head was seen pro- 
jecting from the wing in search of its artificial cover- 
ing. Stories, too, are told of imprudent admirers, 
who, having excited the jealousy of the stage carpen- 
ter, did not take the precaution to avoid traps, and as a 
consequence found themselves shot up into the " flies," 
or hastily dropped down to the dismal depths below 
the stage. 

It is a very common trick to let people through a 
trap-door. I was present several times in the theatre 
when victims were carried down to the black and un- 
inviting space below the stage. At a benefit given to 
a popular treasurer in St. Louis, a well-known young 
man who was in the liquor business was prevailed upon 
to appear in the programme and was put down for a 
lecture on temperance. The house was crowded that 

night, and P H was there in all the glory 

and wealth of his wardrobe, fully prepared to entertain 
the audience for half an hour or so. One of the boys 
had had the pleasure — so he termed it — of hearing 
H read his lecture through, and he gave the 



154 



NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 



others the cue for the fun. The lecturer's table was 
placed just at the edge of a trap, and a trick candle, 
one such as is used in pantomime, and that keeps on 




NELL GWYNNE. 



growing taller and taller as the clown in vain tries to 
get within reach of the flame, stood at one side of the 
piece of furniture. H— 



went on the stage bowing 



NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 155 

his neatest and smiling his sweetest. He was, of 
course, received with " thunders of applause," and 
storms of the same kind interrupted him at frequent 
intervals. At last the place was reached where the 
fun was to commence. " Bang !" went a gun in the 
air, the thunder rolled, there was red fire, and the 

floor parted. Down went H slowly, and up went 

the candle. He was so terror-stricken that he could 
do nothing, and was left to grope his way through the 
darkness to the stairs. The language he used when 
he once more found himself among his friends was 
stronger and less elegant than were the phrases of his 
lecture. He appears at no more benefits. 

A young society man now of Cincinnati was treated 
in the same way, a trap having been left open upon 
which he stepped in the middle of a play in which he 
took the leading part with a company of amateurs, 
when down he went, to the dismay of his friends, the 
delight of the young fellows who had "put up the 
job," and to his own horror. In Leadville, Col., a 
serio-comic singer who had incurred the displeasure of 
.one of the stage hands, was retiring into the side 
scenes bowing gracefully and kissing her hand to the 
audience, when suddenly down went one of her pink- 
clad limbs through an open trap, and her moment of 
triumph was turned into one of ridicule, and in addi- 
tion to her mortification the leg was broken. Such 
tricks are always dangerous and more frequently are 
followed by mourning than fun. 

Powell, the English actor, sought in vain one night 
for a " super" who was wont to dress him, but who 
on this occasion had undertaken to play the part of 
Lothario's corpse in " The Fair Penitent." Powell, 
who took the principal character, shouted in an angry 
tone for Warren, who could not help raising his head 



156 



NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 



from out the coffin in which he was lying, and an- 
swering, " Here, sir." " Come, then," continued 
Powell, not knowing where the voice came from, " or 
I'll break every bone in your body!" Warren, know- 




EMMA THURSBY. 

ing that his master was quite capable of carrying out 
the threat, sprang in his fright out of the coffin and 
ran in his winding-sheet across the stage. 

The dying heroes and heroines of the present day 



NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 157 

wait to regain animation until the curtain has fallen, 
when they reappear in their own private characters at 
the foot-lights. A distinguished tenor, Signor Giug- 
II ill , being much applauded one night for his singing in 
the " Miserere " scene of "II Trovatore," quitted the 
dungeons in which Manrico is supposed to be confined, 
came forward to the public, bowed, and then, not to 
cheat the executioner, went quietly back to prison 
again. A much more modern story of the confusion 
of facts with appearances is told, and with truth, of a 
distinguished military amateur, who had undertaken, 
for one occasion only, to play the part of Don Gio- 
vanni. In the scene in which the profligate hero is 
seized and carried down to the infernal regions, the 
principal character could neither persuade nor compel 
the demons, who were represented by private soldiers, 
to lay hands on one whom, whatever part he might 
temporarily assume, they knew well to be a colonel in 
the army. The demons kept at a respectful distance, 
and, when ordered in a loud whisper to lay hands on 
their dramatic victim, contented themselves with fall- 
ing into an attitude of attention. 

Jules Janin, in the collection of his feuilletons pub- 
lished under the title of " Histoire de la Litterature 
Dramatique," tells how in the ultra-tragic tragedy of 
" Trao-adalbas," an actor, in the midst of a solemn 
tirade, let a set of false teeth fall from his mouth. 
This was nothing more or less than an accident which 
might happen to any one. Lord Brougham is said to 
have suffered the same misfortune while speaking in 
the House of Lords! But the great tragedian showed 
great presence of mind, and also a certain indifference 
to the serious nature of tlft work in which he was en- 
gaged, when he coolly stooped down, picked up the 



158 



NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 



teeth, replaced them between his jaws, and continued 
his speech. 




LILLIAN RUSSELL. 



At some French provincial theatre, where a piece 
was being played in which the principal character was 



NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 159 

that of a blind man, the actor to whom this part had 
been assigned was unwell, and it seemed necessary to 
call upon another member of the company to read the 
part. Thus the strange spectacle was witnessed of a 




JOE JEFFERSON. 

man supposed to be totally blind, who read every word 
he uttered from a paper he carried in his hand. 

At an English performance of "William Tell," the 
traditional arrow, instead of going straight from Tell's 
bow to the heart — perforated beforehand — of the 



160 



NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 



apple placed on the head of TelVs son, stopped half 
way on the wire along which it should have travelled 
to its destination. Everything, however, succeeded in 




LOLA MONTEZ. 



Rossini's " William Tell," except the apple incident, 
as everything failed in Dennis's "Appius," except that 
thunder which Dennis recognized and claimed as his 
own when he heard it a few nights afterward in " Mac- 




LIZZIE WEBSTER 



NOT DOWN IN THE BILL. 



161 



beth." Yet it has never been very difficult to repre- 
sent thunder on the stage. One of the oldest theatrical 




LAWRENCE BARRETT. 



anecdotes is that of the actor, who, playing the part 

of a bear, hears a clap of stage-thunder, and mistaking 

it for the real thing, makes the sign of the cross. 
11 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 

A person can gain an idea of the extent of stage 
decorations and the possibility of scenic illusions in the 
old English theatre by reading a description of the 
theatre as it existed in its poverty of costume and 
bareness of paint in the Elizabethan era. Rousseau 
has left a description of the Paris Opera House as he 
saw it and it will be found interesting to all who are 
acquainted with the methods and the absolute magni- 
tude of the theatre of the present day. It must be 
remembered, however, when considering the smallness 
of the stage described by Rousseau, that it was blocked 
up on both sides, as was the early English stage, by 
the aristocratic section of the audience, who sat in rows 
by the side of the singers while the plebeian music 
lovers stood up in the pit. It was in exactly the same 
condition as the English stage, when actors and ac- 
tresses were interrupted and even insulted by their 
lordly patrons ; — as when Mrs. Bellamy one evening 
as she passed across the stage at Dublin was kissed 
upon the neck by a Mr. St. Leger, whose ears the 
actress boxed there and then ; Lord Chesterfield rose 
in his box on this occasion and applauded ; the entire 
audience followed his example and at the end of the 
performance St. Leger was obliged by the viceroy to 
make a public apology to the actress. 

" Imagine," writes Rousseau about the Paris Opera, 
" an inclosure fifteen feet broad, and long in propor- 

(162) 



THR ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 163 

tion ; this inclosure is the theatre. On its two sides 
are placed at intervals screens, on which are curiously 
painted the objects which the scene is about to repre- 
sent. At the back of the inclosure hangs a great cur- 
tain, painted in like manner, and nearly always pierced 
and torn, that it may represent at a little distance 
gulfs on the earth or holes in the sky. Every one 
who passes behind this stage, or touches the curtain, 
produces a sort of earthquake, which has a double ef- 
fect. The sky is made of certain bluish rags, sus- 
pended from poles, or from cords, as linen may be 
seen hung out to dry in any washerwoman's yard. 
The sun, for it is seen here sometimes, is a lighted 
torch in a lantern. The cars of the gods and god- 
desses are composed of four rafters, secured and hung 
on a thick rope in the form of a swing or see-saw ; be- 
tween the rafters is a coarse plank, on which the gods 
sit down, and in front hangs a piece of coarse cloth, 
well dirtied, which acts the part of clouds for the 
magnificent car. One may see toward the bottom of 
the machine two or three foul candles, badly snuffed, 
which, while the greater personage dementedly presents 
himself swinging in his see-saw, fumigate him with 
incense worthy of his dignity. The agitated sea is 
composed of long angular lanterns of cloth and blue 
pasteboard, strung on parallel spits, which are turned 
by little blackguard boys. The thunder is a heavy 
cart, rolled over an arch, and is not the least agree- 
able instrument heard at our opera. The flashes of 
lightning are made of pinches of resin thrown on a 
flame, and the thunder is a cracker at the end of a 
fuse. The theatre is, moreover, furnished with little 
square traps, which opening at the end, announce 
that the demons are about to issue from their cave. 
When they have to rise into the air, little demons of 



164 



THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 



stuffed brown cloth are substituted for them, or some- 
times real chimney-sweeps, who swing about sus- 
pended on ropes, till they are majestically lost in the 
rags of which I have spoken." 

This sad condition of theatrical illusions cannot be 




J. K. EMMETT. 



regarded otherwise than strange when it is recorded 
that decorations were of a higher order in the reign 
of Louis XIV. Saint-Evremond is authority for the 
statement that the sun and moon were so well repre- 



THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 165 

sented at the French opera during this period that the 
ambassador of Guinea, who assisted at one of the 
performances, was decoyed into leaning forward in 
his box and religiously saluting the orbs. Had Rous- 
seau lived to the present day, the wonders and mys- 
teries of our stage would have made his great heart 
leap within him. Modern art and modern mechanism 
have brought stage representations so close to nature 
that the scenes seem to be small sections, either of 
country or city, mountain or vale, lifted from the face 
of the world and placed in all their beauty at the 
stage-end of the theatre. Managers do not fear to go 
to any length in mounting plays properly, and there 
is nothing in the outer world that defies reproduction 
in the mimic sphere. Steam is freely used ; fire 
rages fiercely through folds of inflammable canvas ; 
the lightnings flash ; Hendrick Hudson and his men 
roll nine-pins in the Catskills, and the low rumble 
of the thunder, as the balls rattle down from crag to 
crag, is distinctly heard by the audience ; poor, de- 
mented old Lear cries to the winds to crack and blow 
their cheeks, and they do so to his full satisfaction ; 
there is genuine rain in the shipwreck scene of " The 
Hearts of Oak ; " a plentiful fall of the beautiful snow 
for " The Two Orphans ; " a perfect reproduction of a 
mountain rivulet for " The Danites ; " steamboat and 
railroad explosions of a realistic character in every- 
thing : an almost horizonless sea for the great raft 
scene in " The World ; " and gorgeous coloring, rich 
furniture, choice bric-a-brac, rare paintings and the 
Lord only knows what, for the thousand and one 
melodramatic and society plays that are now flooding 
the stage. Then there are gems apparantly rich 
enough to have come from the treasuries of Khedive 
or Sultan, and lobes so redolent of royalty in color 



166 



THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 



and material that the female portion of the audience 
is almost driven to distraction in admiring and cov- 
eting them. Little does the average lady patron of 
the theatre imagine that the finery she covets is often 
the product of the artiste's own needle, and that the 




JOHN T. RAYMOND. 



gaiety and glory of an actress's career — with hundreds 
of admirers pouring diamonds into her lap, and hun- 
dreds of others feasting upon her charms, while many 
hang with reverence upon the words that fall from her 



THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 167 

lips — is but the merest of dreams; and that the 
sister whose professional successes cause her to look 
upon the stage as a place of pleasure only, may live 
in a tenement surrounded by a poor family to whose 
support her life-efforts are devoted ; that she has few 
admirers ; that she is pure as the fairest and purest 
woman in private life, and that her only sacrifice is 
made to the art which she loves and to which she has 
consecrated herself. 

There are but few who have not an exaggerated idea 
of the value of everything they see upon the stage. 
It is true that many actresses are rich enough to wear 
diamond necklaces, and to otherwise sprinkle their 
persons with brilliants of the first water ; but it is 
equally true that many others are poor, and that the 
gems they wear come from the cheap stock of articles 
kept in the theatrical property-room. An amusing 
story is told by Olive Logan, who was an actress, 
about the false value placed upon stage jewels. 

" While I was fulfilling a round of theatrical -engage- 
ments in the South, during the war," says Miss 
Logan, " I was compelled by 'military necessity,' to 
pack up my jewels and send them to Cincinnati. Of 
course there were a number of stage trinkets in the 
bag as well as some little jewelry of real value, but as 
it happened a fabulous idea had got afloat of the value 
of my little trinkets, and I was offered large sums for 
the carpet sack, 'just as it stood,' after I had packed 
it to send it to Cincinnati. 

" * I'll give you ten thousand dollars for it without 
opening,' said one gentleman ; ' I want those ear-rings 
for my wife ? ' 

" 'No,' I answered, 'no; those things were given 
me in France, and I shouldn't like to part with 
them.' 



168 



THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 



" 'Are the ear-rings in here? 
" ■ Yes,' I answered. 
" 'And the bracelet?' " 
" ' Yes.' " 




KATHERLNE ROGERS. 



" ' Fifteen thousand — will you? ' " 

" 'No, no,' I answered, and the matter ended. I 
couldn't help laughing, for truly I might have made a 
sharp bargain if I had wished. Somebody would have 



THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 169 

been sold, and that somebody not myself. I returned 
to Cincinnati after my trip to Nashville, and there 
found my effects awaiting me in good order. One day 
in the Burnet House I was accosted by a pleasant- 
looking gentleman, who informed me that he had taken 
charge of the bag from Louisville to Cincinnati. 

" * Did not Mr. send it by express? ' I asked. 

" * No. I was coming up, and he thought it best to 
entrust it to me.' 

" 'I'm very much obliged to you,' I said. 

" 'Indeed, you have cause to be,' he said, good- 
naturedly. ' I give you my word it's the last time I'll 
have on my mind the charge of fifty thousand dollars' 
worth of diamonds.' " 

After an English lady of rank returned from the 
continent, she found her trunk robbed of its jewels. 
Detectives traced the jewels to a London pawnshop, 
where they had been sold for $5. The thieves were 
arrested, and when one of them was asked why he had 
been so foolish as to sell nearly one hundred thousand 
dollars' worth of diamonds for $5, he answered : 
" Why, yer honor, we never thought for a minute as 
how they were real jewels ; we just thought the lady 
was some play-actor woman, and that the whole lot 
wasn't worth but a few shillings." 

The trinkets are no more deceptive than are many 
other means employed to astonish and gladden the 
public. The production of thunder, the simulation of 
rain-fall, the fictitious roaring of winds, and the mul- 
tiplication of suns, moons and stars are among the 
numerous illusions that o-ive to the theatre that mar- 
vellous charm under whose spell thousands are nightly 
placed and held. In the olden times these effects were 
produced in a simple and by no means mystifying 
manner, but late years have made them so perfect in 



170 



THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 



their application that none but the initiated can even 
begin to think out the solution of the wondrous effects 




JOSEPHINE D ORME. 



in which the stage now abounds. A new effect, such 
as the enormous stretch of sea and sky to be fouud in 



THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 171 

" The World," is something that dramatic authors and 
stage mechanics are always seeking after and are glad 
to find. The revolving tower in " The Shaughran " 
was a puzzle to everybody. Now there are hundreds 
of effects of this kind with folding and vanishing scenes 
that are even more wonderful than Boucicault's tower. 
Viewed from the wings the simplicity of the means 
employed to produce these effects makes them abso- 
lutely laughable. They shall be explained in this 
chapter. 

Thunder-storms are common efforts at realism, and 
they are sometimes simulated in a way that makes 
them appear to fall very little short of nature. The 
earliest style of stage thunder was effected by vigor- 
ously shaking a piece of sheet iron which made a rat- 
tling and ear-disturbing noise. Even now when a 
show is " on the road" and a hall without the usual 
first-class accessories must be used, the audience, and 
the actor too, must be satisfied with sheet-iron thun- 
der. The modern invention is known as the thunder- 
drum, and it stands over the prompter's desk where 
it can be easily reached by a long stick with a thick, 
soft padding at the end — similar to the sticks used in 
beating bass-drums. The thunder-drum consists of a 
calf-skin tightly drawn over the top of a box frame. 
With this instrument the low rumbling of distant thun- 
der or the long roll of the elemental disturbance may 
be attained, and, following the sharp rattling of the 
shaken sheet of iron and the flash of ignited magne- 
sium an effect is produced that completely awes the 
simple citizen who knows nothing of the mechanism of 
the stage. 

The prompter, too, who by the way is a most re- 
sponsible person among the individuals who populate 
the mimic world, has control of the rain machine. 



172 THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 

This is a wooden cylinder, about two feet in diameter, 
and four or five feet long. It is filled with dried peas 
which rattle against wooden teeth in its inside surface, 
as the machine, which is in the " flies," is operated by 
a belt running down to the prompter's desk. This 
reminds me that I have used the expression "flies" 
several times without explaining what is meant. The 
" flies " is a term used to designate the scenery and 
spaces above the stage, and as there is a great deal of 
it, it has as much importance in a theatrical sense as 
any other part of the back of the house. Well, to 
resume the explanation, the prompter has the rain 
machine in the "flies" fully under control and can 
turn out any kind of a rain-storm the play may 
require ; if a swirl of the aqueous downpour is needed, — 
such a manifestation of wrathy lachrymoseness as you 
find in a storm that at intervals beats mercilessly 
against your windows and the side of your house, — 
one good, strong, sharp pull at the rope will effect it. 
Less atrocious efforts of the elements may be obtained 
with a slighter exertion of muscle at the rope or belt. 
The wind machine is a very necessary adjunct of these 
storm effects, and it is to be found in every large thea- 
tre, furnishing " a nipping and an eager air" or one 
of those howling blasts that make night desolate and 
day disastrous. The wind machine may be moved to 
any part of the stage. Sometimes it is behind the 
door of a hut through which snow is fiercely driven, 
and at other times it may be in the side scenes, or any 
locality to which or through which the storm is rush- 
ing. It is an awful funny thing to the man at the wind 
machine to think of the cold chill he sends down the 
back of the sensitive play-goer as the wind whistles 
across the scene in which poor blind Louise, in the 
"Two Orphans," figures, or that scene in "Ours" 



THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 



173 



where Lord Shendryn is at the mercy of the pitiless 
storm. The wind that makes the warm blood frigid 




CORA PEARL. 



under such circumstances is very easily constructed. 
A cylinder from which extend paddles is set in a suit* 



174 THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 

able frame and above its top is stretched a piece of 
grosgrain silk. The silk is stationary, but the cylinder 
and paddles are operated by means of a crank and 
sometimes by a " crank." Swift motion produces 
woeful gusts of the windy article, and a steady blast 
may be duplicated by patiently working the machine. 
When the property-man is driven to the necessity of 
providing rain and wind in theatrical districts that do 
not boast of modern appliances he obtains a rain effect 
by rolling bird-shot over brown paper that has been 
pasted around a hoop, and the wind is raised by swing- 
ing around a heavy piece of gas-hose. This kind of 
thing is called " faking" the wind or rain. 

When real water is used on the stage to simulate 
rain, as in the first act of the ** Hearts of Oak," or 
" Oaken Hearts," as they at one time tried to call a 
pirated edition of it, the effect is obtained by carrying 
water to the stage lofts, during the day, where it re- 
mains in a tank connected with a long piece of per- 
forated pipe, back of the proscenium border, and 
stretching across the stage. At night when the proper 
time arrives the water is allowed to run into the pipe, 
from which it of course falls in numerous small streams 
upon a rubber tarpaulin that has been stretched below 
to receive it. So too in mountain rivulets with " real 
water, " as in " The Danites," a tank in'the loft must 
be filled daily with water to supply the nightly scene. 
In all instances of this sort the effect is quite realistic, 
and never fails to meet with a hearty appreciation by 
the audience. 

The snow-storm is also usually a pleasing stage pic- 
ture, and is brought about in a most simple manner. 
White paper is cut into very small pieces, which are 
carefully treasured by the property-man, whose duty 
it is to see to everything of this kind in and around 



THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 



175 



the stage, and who regards the manufacture of a snow- 
storm as a very slow and tedious piece of work. When 
the snow is ready it is placed in what is called the 
snow-box, a long narrow affair with slats on the bottom 







?»&«S5fc'( 




LESTER WALLACK. 

leaving room enough for the pieces of paper to sift 
through, when the box is given a swaying motion. 
The contrivance is swung over the stage by means of 
two ropes, and is operated by a third leading to one 
side of the stage. When the chilled heroine comes 



176 THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 

upon the scene amid a terrible fall of snow and draws 
her thin garments tightly over her shoulder, while she 
shivers, the snow-box up above is swinging to and fro, 
and the white flakes are only bits of paper frauds that 
the property-man or an assistant will carefully sweep 
up after the scene or act, to do duty again the follow- 
ing night and for many a night to come. 

The snow-storm and the other illusions described 
above are only a fraction of the things the property 
man has to look after and keep in order. He has 
charge of everything upon the stage and is responsible 
for everything except the scenery. When a play is 
running that requires handsome appointments, it is his 
business to provide. Within the past decade or so of 
years it has become the custom to borrow expensive 
furniture from generous local dealers who are often 
satisfied with the simple and easy remuneration of a 
line or two acknowledging the loan, in the programme ; 
or a certain price is paid for the use of the furniture 
during the run of the play ; or the set is purchased 
outright from the dealer and repurchased by him at a 
reduction when the theatre is done with it. Nearly 
all theatres, however, are supplied with suitably hand- 
some furniture for an ordinary society play, and it is only 
when £or£eousnessis aimed at that managers are obliged 
to borrow. Pistols, knives, helmets, lances, battle- 
axes, canes, cigars, money, pocket-books, the vial from 
which Juliet takes the fatal draught, the marble or 
majolica pedestals, the rich vases, sunflowers such as 
are used in the aesthetic play of" The Colonel," the 
paste-board ham, the tin cups, or cut glasses that the 
characters drink from, fire-place, mantel, and looking- 
glass — these, and many other articles the property- 
man furnishers the players, either placing the station- 
ary fixtures on the stage, or sending the call-boy to 



THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 



177 



the performers with the articles they require. The 
check-book that the rich banker draws from his pocket 
when he hands $100,000, more or less, over to some- 
body else in the play, the quill or pen he writes the 




CLARA MORRIS. 



check with, and the bottle out of which he dips the 
imaginary ink, all come from the property-room, and 
go back to it again after the act is over. A list of the 
articles required for a play is furnished the property- 



178 



THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 



man when a play is to be put on, and these articles he 
must have when the prompter calls or sends for them. 
Sometimes the property-man forgets, and then there 
is trouble in the camp. It is related 



that having for- 




HELEN DINGEON. 

gotten to provide a Juliet with her vial of poison, in 
time, the article being called for as the actress was 
about to go on the stage, the property-man snatched 
up the first thing that looked like a vial that he got his 
eyes on. It was a bottle from the prompter's desk, 






THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 179 

and when Juliet placed the awful draught to her lips 
and took a pull at the bottle, she discovered to her 
horror that she had swallowed a dose of ink. The ac- 
tress, who tells the story herself in her autobiography, 
said, she wanted to " swallow a sheet of blotting- 
paper," when she made the inky discovery. 

I find in Miss Logan's book from which I have before 
quoted in this chapter, the following funny inventory of 
properties furnished a new lessee of the Drury Lane 
Theatre, London: "Spirits of wine, for flames and 
apparitions, £12 2s. ; three and one-half bottles of 
lightning, £ — ; one snow-storm, of finest French paper, 
3s. ; two snow-storms of common French paper, 2s. ; 
complete sea, with twelve long waves, slightly dam- 
aged, £1 10s. ; eighteen clouds, with black edges, in 
good order, 12s., 6d. ; rainbow, slightly faded, 2s. ; 
an assortment of French clouds, flashes of lightning 
and thunder-bolts, 15s. ; a new moon, slightly tar- 
nished, 15s. ; imperial mantle, made for Cyrus, and 
subsequently worn by Julius Caesar and Henry VIII. , 
10s. ; Othello's handkerchief, 6d. ; six arm-chairs 
and six flower-plots, which dance country dances, £2." 
The same author adds another quotation that gives a 
better idea of the quantity and character of the pro- 
perty-man's possessions, saying: — 

" He has charge of all the movables and has to exer- 
cise the greatest ingenuity in getting them up. His 
province is to preserve the canvas water from getting 
uol, keep the sun's disk clear and the moon from 
getting torn ; he manufactures thunder on sheet iron, 
or from parchment stretched drum-like on a frame ; he 
prepares boxes of dried peas for rain and wind, and 
huge watchman's rattles for the crash of falling tow- 
ers. He has under his charge demijohns for the fall 
of concealed china in cupboards ; speaking trum- 



180 THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 

pets to imitate the growl of ferocious wild beasts ; penny 
whistles for the ' cricket on the hearth ;' powdered 
rosin for lightning flashes, where gas is not used ; rose 
pink, for the blood of patriots ; money, cut out of tin ; 
finely cut bits of paper for fatal snow-storms ; ten-pin 
balls, for the distant mutterings of a storm; bags of 
gold containing bits of broken glass and pebbles, to 
imitate the musical ring of coin ; balls of cotton wad- 
ding for apple dumplings ; links of sausages, made of 
painted flannel ; sumptuous boquets of papier mache ; 
block-tin rings with painted beads puttied in for royal 
signets ; crowns of Dutch gilding lined with red ferret ; 
broomstick handles cut up for truncheons for command ; 
brooms themselves for witches to ride ; branches of 
cedar for Birnam wood ; dredging boxes of flour for 
the fate-desponding lovers ; vermilion to tip the noses 
of jolly landlords ; pieces of rattan silvered over for 
fairy wands ; leaden watches, for gold repeaters ; dog- 
chains for the necks of knighthood, and tin spurs for 
its heels ; armor made of leather, and shields of wood ; 
fans for ladies to coquet behind ; quizzing-glasses, for 
exquisites to ogle with ; legs of mutton, hams, loaves 
of bread and plum-puddings, all cut from canvas, and 
stuffed with sawdust ; together with all the pride, 
pomp, and circumstance of a dramatic display. Such 
is the property-man of a theatre. He bears his honors 
meekly ; he mixes molasses and water for wine and 
darkens it a little shade for brandy ; is always busy 
behind the scenes, but is seldom seen, unless it is to 
clear the stage, and then what a shower of yells and 
hisses does he receive from the cilleries ! The 
thoughtless gods cry ' Supe ! Supe ! ' which if intended 
for an abbreviation of superior or superfine, may be 
opposite, but in no other view of the case. What 
would a theatre be without a property-man ? A world 



THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 



181 



without a sun * * * Kings would be trunch- 
eonless and crownless ; brigands without spoils ; old 
men without canes and powder; Harlequin without 
his hat ; Macduff without his leafy screen ; theatres 




SCOTT-SIDDONS. 



would close — there would be no tragedy, no comedy, 
no farce without him. Jove in his chair was never 
more potent than he. An actor might, and often does 
get along without the words of his part, but not with- 



182 THE ILLUSIONS OF THE STAGE. 

out the properties. What strange quandaries have we 
seen the Garricks and Siddonses of our stage get into 
when the property-man lapsed in his duty ! We have 
seen Romeo distracted because the bottle of poison was 
not to be found ; Virginius tear his hair because the 
butcher's knife was not ready on the shambles ; Baillie 
Nicol Jarvie nonplussed because there was no red-hot 
poker to singe the Tartan fladdie with ; Macbeth 
frowning because the Eighth Apparition did not bear a 
glass to show him any more ; William Tell in agony 
because there was no small apple for Gesler to pick ; 
the First Murderer in distress because there was no 
blood for his face ready ; Hecate fuming like a hell- 
cat because her car did not mount easily ; Richard the 
Third grinding his teeth because the clink of hammers 
closing rivets up was forgotten ; Hamlet brought up 
all standing because there was no goblet to drink the 
poison from, and Othello stabbing Iago with a candle- 
stick because he had no other sword of Spain, the 
Ebro's temper, to do the deed with. So, the property- 
man is no insignificant personage — he is the main- 
spring which sets all the work in motion ; and an actor 
had better have a bad epitaph when dead than his ill 
will while living." 



CHAPTEK XII. 



MORE OF THE MYSTERIES. 



A few companies have done away entirely with the 
canvas-outlined turkey and the sawdust-stuffed dump- 
ling, and have meals that figure in the play served on 
the stage piping hot from some neighboring restau- 
rant. There is genuine wine too, and often it is cham- 
pagne of such quality that its sparkle makes the eyes 
of the tipplers in the audience dance, and their mouths 
run water. In this and many other ways the desire to 
get as near to the real thing as possible in art has 
caused encroachments on the property-man's terri- 
tory, and gradually his treasures are decreasing. Still 
his occupation is not as gone as Othello's. Travelling 
combinations have their own property-man, and the 
theatres each carry one. Besides the magnificent 
work of producing snow-storms from paper, etc., there 
are minor details of his business that he brings as 
much art to as the average actor and actress take to 
the stage. He builds a warrior's helmet from simple 
brown manilla paper and makes a pair of bronze urns 
in the same cheap way, although they may appear to 
be worth $300. Bronze figures, too, are obtained 
from the same material ; also flower-pots, mantel- 
pieces, and such things. He goes about the work like 
an artist. He first makes a model in clay of the arti- 
cle — say it is an urn. This done he builds a wooden 
box around it, and mixing plaster of paris and water 
pours the mixture between the box and model where 

(183) 



184 



MORE OF THE MYSTERIES. 



it is allowed to harden. After the clay mould has been 
withdrawn the plaster of paris mould is greased, and 
five successive coats of small pieces of thick brown 
paper that have been soaked in water are carefully laid 




JOHN PARSELLE. 



on. A layer of muslin and glue follows, and three 
more coats of the brown paper. When the applica- 
tion has thoroughly dried, the last three layers of 
brown paper are removed, and the urn which has been 



MORE OF THE MYSTERIES. 185 

four days in process of completion is ready for use. 
Goblets for royal or knightly banquets are manufac- 
tured by the property-man in the same manner. Often 
has a golden goblet, ewer, amphora, or salver fallen 
to the floor from the hands of awkward Ganymedes 
and Hebes without creating any consternation among 
the gathered gallants, or making a sound loud enough 
to ripple above the lightest notes of the orchestra. 
These properties are light, but very durable, and well 
withstand the harsh and careless treatment they fre- 
quently receive. Often the entire " banquet set " is 
made of paper, the skilled work of the worthy prop- 
erty-man, who holds probably the most independent 
place in the theatre, being obliged to carry no article 
to anybody — not even a foreign star — but leaves that 
menial work to the stage manager, prompter, or call- 
boy. 

Moonlight is one of the most poetical and beautiful 
of stage effects. The first work in producing it is 
done by the scenic artist, who places a moonlight pic- 
ture on his canvas. The calcium light filtered through 
a green glass fills the foreground with its mellow influ- 
ence. At the back of the stage a row of argand 
burners with light green shades, gives the. faint and soft 
touches that fill in the distance. A " ground piece" 
or strip of scenery runs along the floor at the back of 
the stage, and just under the main scene hides the 
" green mediums," as the shaded burners are called, 
from the eyes of the audience. Sometimes the row is 
above the stage, and protected from sight by the 
" sky-borders." Silver ripples on the surface of 
water, and twinkling stars in the sky are frequently 
made features of moonlight scenery. The twinkling 
stars are bright spangles hung by pin-hooks to the 
scenes, and the ripples are only slits in the water can- 



18G MORE OF THE MYSTERIES. 

vas, behind which an endless towel with slits cut in its 
surface and a strong gaslight between the rollers and 
the sides of the towel, is made to revolve. Every 
time the slits in the towel came opposite the slits in 
the canvas the light shines through and the silver 
dance upon the lake or river. When the slits in the 
towel are made to move upward the ripples seem to 
lift their silvery tops towards the bending sky. Moon- 
rise, which is always an agreeable illusion, even to 
those who know how it is done, is effected by lifting 
the " moon-box," as it is carried slowly up behind a 
muslin canvas, upon which heavy paper is fastened to 
represent clouds. The "moon-box" is an ordinary 
cubial affair with a round hole at one end, over which 
a strip of muslin is fastened, and behind which is a 
strong illumination. Two wires from above are man- 
ipulated causing the moon to move through its orbit. 
When its path lies behind one of the paper clouds the 
fraudulent Cynthia, just like the genuine queen of the 
heavens, fails to shine, but as soon as she emerges from 
the dark spot and the outer ruin of the illuminated cir- 
cular surface of the "moon-box" touches the white 
muslin once again, she is the fair queen of night and 
the young lovers in the audience feel as happy as if 
they were at home swinging on the front gate, while 
pa is at the club and ma is entertaining an amiable 
cousin in the second parlor. The flushed countenance 
of the moon, as she is just rising from Thetis's arms, 
as you see her every night when she is taking her first 
dainty steps up the eastern sky, is obtained by having 
the lower edge of the muslin painted red and grad- 
ually blending with the white, while floating clouds are 
only the result of hanging or sewing on the gauze drop 
in front of the muslin screen, pieces of muslin or canvas 
cut into the proper shapes. The change from day to 






MORE OF THE MYSTERIES. 



187 



night, or vice versa, effects that surpass the other in 
real beauty, and also in attractiveness for the public, 
is produced by having a drop twice the usual length, 
painted one half in a sunset and the other half in moon- 




SOL SMITH RUSSELL, 



light 



If the change from day to night, which is the 
more effective, is desired, the sunset sky occupies the 
upper half of the drop — that is nothing but the sunset 
sky is presented to the eyes of the audience. The dis- 



188 MORE OF THE MYSTERIES. 

tance scenery is painted upon a separate piece and the 
outlines of the objects are sharply cut out so that the 
sunset sky can be seen above the irregular outline of 
the horizon. A gauze drop hangs in front to give the 
picture the required hazy effect, and red lights give a 
sunset glow to the entire scene. Rolling up the back 
drop the change is made slowly and carefully until the 
moon is discovered in the night half of the sky and 
goes up with it, while the usual moonlight mediums 
are brought into requisition to increase the brightness 
of the view. 

There are two ways of producing ocean waves. 
Sometimes a piece of blue cloth with dashes of white 
paint for wave-crests covers the entire stage, when the 
necessary motion of the waters is obtained by having 
men or boys stationed in the entrances to sway the sea. 
Again, each billow may be made to show separate 
with the alternate rows of billows rearing their white 
crests between the tips of the row on each side. 
These billows are rocked backward and forward — to 
and from the audience — while the ocean's roar comes 
from a wooden box lined with tin and containing a 
small quantity of bird shot. The desired sound is 
produced by rolling the box around. 

Anybody who has witnessed Milton Noble's " Phoe- 
nix " properly placed on the stage, or "The Streets 
of New York," must have been, the first time, both 
terrified, and still somewhat delighted, with the fire 
scenes. Of late years they have been made wonder- 
fully thrilling, and almost perfect fac-similes of the 
Fire Fiend himself. The scene-painter gets up his 
house in three pieces. The roof is swung from the 
"flies"; the front wall is in two pieces, a jagged 
line running from near the top of one side of the scene 
to the lower end of the other side. If shutters are to 



MORE OF THE MYSTERIES. 



189 



foil, as in " The Streets of New York," they are fas- 
tened to the scene with " quick match," a preparation 
of powder, alcohol, and lamp wick. Iron window and 
door frames are covered with oakum soaked in alcohol 




ROSE COGHLAN. 

or other fire-quickeuing fluid. Steam is made to 
represent smoke, and the steam itself is obtained by 
dissolving lime in water. A platform from the side 
affords a footing to the firemen who are fighting the 
flames in the very midst of the burning building, and 



190 MORE OF THE MYSTERIES. 

an endless towel with painted flames keeps moving 
across the picture after the first wall and roof have 
been allowed to fall in, while red fire plays upon the 
whole picture and " flash torches " are made to repre- 
sent leaping tongues of flame. There appears to be a 
great deal of danger from the operation of a scene of 
this kind, but if proper care is taken the danger is as 
worthy of consideration as that attending the presenta- 
tion of a parlor scene. 

"The World" has been pronounced a novelty in 
scenic effects. I went behind the scenes to see how 
the thing worked, and had the pleasure of finding out 
all about it. The play is in seven set scenes. The first 
had nothing unusual in it except that the ship with full 
steam on and the dock was produced very artistically. 
The ship and the buildings were in profile with a good 
stretch of sky beyond, that was all. Next came the 
explosion scene, when the vessel was, by the supposed 
use of dynamite, sent flying in splinters in mid-ocean, 
and all save four souls went down to the briny depths. 
The mere ship setting, with its boilers, its hatches, its 
galleries, spars and guys, was worthy of admiration. 
While the performers were leading up to the point 
where the awful and fateful moment comes, a man sat 
quietly behind the scenes ready to fire an anvil of 
guns, each charged to the muzzle ; men stood at the 
numerous openings in the rear, and men with chem- 
ical red-fire occupied the side-scenes, while others with 
powdered lycopodium were under the stage beneath a 
half-dozen grated openings. At the left* in the wings, 
stood an array of " supers," to rush on and increase 
the commotion when the shock came. When the 
heavy villain announced that there was a dynamite 
machine on board, and the captain gave orders to his 
men to overhaul everything below and try to find it — 



MORE OF THE MYSTERIES. 191 



then the thunder came. Bang went the young can- 
nons in the rear. The stage shook, and the theatre 
seemed ready to fall about our ears ; the females 
shrieked ; the < < supers ' ' rushed on and shouted ; then 
came the leaping flames from below and from the 
sides, until, finally, the whole picture was one burning 
glow and whirl of smoke, and the curtain came down 
in time, I suppose, to prevent a panic, for women 
shrieked, and men got up from their seats to flee from 
the theatre. Act three brought the grandest illusion 
of all — the great raft scene. This picture shows a 
raft tossing on a rolling ocean with a vast stretch of 
sea on all sides, the sky and waters apparently meeting 
as far away as if they were realities and not mere at- 
tempts at nature. This scene always struck me with 
awe until I saw it from the stage. The second act 
at an end, the stage manager has the stage cleared in 
a short time ; then the carpenter and his assistants go 
to work. A " ground piece " of sea is placed across 
the stage at the first entrance. All the side scenes are 
removed and a hugh curtain of light blue is hung in a 
semi-circle from one side of the stage, up around to 
the rear and then down to the other side. A couple of 
men now come down to the centre of the stage bearing 
something that looks like an old barn-door with four 
swinging legs, one at each corner. A pivot is fastened on 
the stage ; the barn door is balanced on it and down 
through four small openings in the stage go the four 
arms or legs, at points corresponding with the four 
corners of the door. I can see now that the upper 
side of the door bears a slight resemblance to a rude 
raft, the timber being artistically painted upon its sur- 
face. Somebody sticks a pole in the side up the stage. 
A box is placed at one end for the villain who is among 
the saved ; a cushion is furnished at the other end for 



192 



MORE OF THE MYSTERIES. 



the young lady who plays the lad, Ned; Old Owen, 
the miner, lies along the lower side and Sir Clement 
Huntingford, the hero, takes his stand at the mast, 
pale and haggard with hunger and anxiety. The sea 




THE RAFT SCENE 



cloth, covering the stage except for a rectangular 
aperture that goes around the raft and has its edges 
fastened to the raft, is spread; boys crawl under the 



MORE OF THE MYSTERIES. 193 

sea and lie upon their backs ; men stand in the 
side scenes holding the ragged edges of the already 
white-crested sea. Everything is ready now, and amid 
the right kind of music the curtain goes up on the 
magnificent raft scene. Four men under the stage 
have hold of the four pieces hanging from the corners 
of the raft, and by pulling in exact line give it the 
motion of the heaving sea ; the men in the side scenes 
agitate the blue cloth and the boys beneath it toss and 
roll the cloth with hands and feet. Old Owen dies 
before Sir Clement sights a ship no bigger than a star 
away off in the horizon. He ties a rag to the mast for 
a signal ; but the ship keeps moving past, until at last, 
to the despair of all on board the raft, it is about to 
dip below the horizon. But it suddenly tacks ; there 
is a tiny rocket seen curving in the air ; the ship has 
noticed the signal of distress and down comes the cur- 
tain upon the happy trio left alive on board their storm- 
tossed and frail raft. Passing over two acts that are 
only eventful the sixth comes, which represents the 
yard of a lunatic asylum, with two great walls on 
either side of an iron gate that is set well up the stage, 
and through which a stretch of the Eiver Thames and 
the overhanging sky are seen. Sir Clement, who is 
the rightful heir to certain property, has been confined 
here through the machinations of his brother, who is in 
possession, and of another scoundrel. Here, though, 
the hero makes his escape by knocking the officers right 
and left and bounding through the gate ; in a moment 
the walls part and a house with cornices and wide pro- 
jections folds together like a stuffed valentine that has 
been sat upon. One of the walls moves off the stage 
to the left, the other to the right, each moving in an 
arc of a circle, and the whole disappearing from the 
stage, while Sir Clement is discovered paddling safely 



194 MORE OF THE MYSTERIES. 

down the Thames from his pursuers. The walls are 
moved from the stage through the agency of men 
stationed inside. Rollers are provided for the scenic 
structures, and there are two men inside of each piece, 
the one in advance having a lookout hole and acting as 
guide. The only thing attractive in the last act is an 
elevator in the Palace Hotel. This is a simple me- 
chanical effect, however, and needs no explanation. I 
should have said in describing the sea that the horizon 
rises gradually from the stage to a height of about 
three feet at the back, and the sail that is sighted is a 
tiny ship mounted on a frame work on rollers and 
pulled across the stage by a small cord. This raft 
scene is all that has been claimed for it, and the illu- 
sion has not its equal on the stage. The revolving 
tower in " The Shaughraun," and the vanishing scene 
in " Youth," are both worked in the same manner as 
the lunatic asylum walls in " The World." 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE ARMY OF ATTACHES. 



I have already written about the property-man, his 
many duties, and the great responsibility that rests 
upon him. I have also written about the prompter, 
and the vast amount of work he is required to do. But 
there remain behind the scenes and in the body of the 
house, other persons who go to make up the grand 
army of theatrical attaches, and whose place in the 
amusement world is one of some importance, as they 
are the adjuncts without which the drama would be 
left naked of its present beauty and splendor and the 
circumstances under which it would be patronized 
would be full of inconvenience and discomfort. The 
door-keepers of theatres are often interesting charac- 
ters. Sometimes they have been selected outside the 
ranks of the profession, when, of course, they have 
little more to tell you about than the habits and pecu- 
liarities of the theatre-going public ; but many of them 
are broken-down actors, — actors who have been 
" crushed, " and in whose better days vistas of 
unlimited hope opened before their dazzled vision. 
These are full of reminiscences of the old-time saints 
of the sock and buskin. If one could believe all they 
have to say, these victims of circumstances could be 
looked upon as individuals whose destiny it had 
originally been to knock their shiny stove-pipe hats 
against the stars of heaven, but, by some strange fatal- 
ity, had their backs broken and their majestic tread 

(195) 



196 THE ARMY OF ATTACHES. 

lamed, so that now they can only shuffle into a free- 
lunch saloon and bend their necks over the counter as 
they lovingly embrace a schooner of beer. There is 
always room at the bottom for the unfortunates of the 
profession, and they find such provision usually made 
for them, as taking tickets at the door, or working 
outside among the newspaper boys in the capacity of 
agent. The treasurer of a theatre and the ticket seller, 
who, in the broad sense of the word, may be looked 
upon as attaches, are people that all patrons of thea- 
tres are familiar with. They, with the door-keeper, 
must in the blandest manner at their command resist 
the advances of the very numerous dead-heads. A 
courteous refusal is always deemed the best, but fre- 
quently the harshest treatment must be resorted to to 
get rid of this theatrical nuisance, of whom I shall take 
occasion to speak later on, as well as of the free-pass 
system. The treasurer of a theatre is always on terms 
of intimacy with the professionals who frequent his 
house, and is usually a jolly -featured, good-natured 
man who knows how to entertain his friends, to retain 
the good opinion of his manager, while filling up the 
ticket-box with passes, and who understands and ap- 
preciates the full value of the saying that a soft answer 
turneth aside wrath. His salary ranges from $25 to 
$50 a week, while a good ticket-seller, who frequently 
is made to do all the hard work, may be had for $12 
or $15. A door-keeper is paid from $10 to $15 a 
week. 

The great American type of youthful citizen, with all 
the manners and dignity of old age and the advisory 
qualities of a Nestor, is the theatrical usher — the 
young chap who takes your reserved seat ticket with a 
smile full of malignity and succeeds in getting you 
into the wrong chair and almost into a prize fight with 



THE AUMY OF ATTACHES. 



197 



every man who comes into the same row of seats. He 



does this graciously and with such an exhibition of 



carefulness in comparing the number on your coupon 
with the number of the chair, that you actually feel 
ashamed of yourself to have made a mistake after what 




MINNIE HACK. 



appeared to you to be an honest, vigorous, and suc- 
cessful effort to show you what was right. The ushers 
in Western cities are mere boys in uniform ; in the 
East they are young men, and at Haverly's, Wal- 



198 THE ARMY OF ATTACHES. 

lack's, and other first-class New York establishments, 
you will find them in full evening dress with as large 
an exhibition of shirt front as the swellest of the 
society noodles who are among the patrons of the 
house. The usher gets $6 or $8 a week, but 
impresses the stranger as if he owned an interest in the 
theatre. He may sell calico or run a lemonade stand 
during the day, but at night he is master of all he sur- 
veys, talks of the actresses as familiarly as if he were 
a blood relation, tries to make you believe he has " a 
solid girl " in. the ballet, and will offer you any favor, 
from an introduction to the star to a dozen matinee- 
passes or a game of seven-up with the manager. Like 
the claquers, he is a regular nuisance. After the first 
act he will sit or stand and give his opinion of the play, 
commenting upon the performers in such brief, half 
ejaculatory, half interrogatory way, as, " Ain't she a 
daisy, though?" or, "Ain't he a dandy, you bet?" 
He is expected to applaud even the vilest and least 
deserving things, and when the cue is given, works his 
hands and feet as vigorously as I have often seen 
Henry Mapleson in applauding Marie Roze, his wife, 
or a travelling manager in commending the efforts of 
his favorite among the females of his company.. 

Down in front, right under the glow of the foot- 
lights, the bald head of the leader of the orchestra 
shines. Often he is interesting, but sometimes, es- 
pecially among the leaders for combinations on the 
road, he has a life history that compels now tears and 
now again laughter. When he is on the road he may 
have a wife or daughter in the company, and if he has 
neither he is bound to look lovingly upon some of the 
fair talent whose toes twinkle, or voices ripple in song to 
the tune of his waving baton, and he will smile out 
through his gold-rimmed spectacles upon his favorite 



THE ARMY OF ATTACHES. 190 

even while she is courting the favor of the audience, or, 
perhaps, while she is trying to mash some beefy blonde 
in the front rows of the parquette. Jealousy often takes 
possession of the breast of the orchestra Leader. It 
may be that he will find out that the wife he has done 
everything for to make famous has younger and hand- 
somer lovers, from whose glowing presence she comes 
to her musical lord cold as a Christmas morning with 
eighteen inches of ice on pond and river ; or it may be 
that the favorite of the foot-lights whom he adores has 
found another favorite in the audience ; then there is 
war, and sometimes the orchestra is left without its 
leader and a story of unrequited love is told in a cor- 
oner's inquest held upon a body found floating in a 
pool, or hanging from a transom in the room of some 
hotel. To leave the pathetic and get down to solid 
facts it may be stated that the leader of an orchestra 
is paid from $75 to $100 a week, and has from a dozen 
to sixteen musicians whose salaries range from $18 to 
$30 a week. 

Again returning to the bosom of the stage — to the 
sacred precincts beyond the foot-lights — we encounter 
the stage manager. Every travelling company has its 
own employee who directs and runs the stage business, 
and notwithstanding the abolition of stock companies, 
several theatres retain stage managers of their own 
who work in conjunction with the company's, looking 
after the setting of scenery, bossing the stage hands, 
etc. The stage manager may be an actor, or he may 
not, but he must be a man of theatrical training, and 
thoroughly conversant with all the requirements of the 
stage. In travelling combinations he usually plays a 
minor part, and, although he may not be able to act as 
well as his brethren of the play, he must possess the 
requisite artistic knowledge to point out and dictate 



200 THE ARMY OF ATTACHES. 

what all shall do. He supervises rehearsals ; casts 
plays, — that is, assigns to each performer his character ; 
and he looks after the mounting of plays and the cos- 
tuming, giving the scenic artist the period to which the 
play belongs, aud imparting the same information to 
the costumers so that there may be no anachronism in 
the representation on the stage. 

The scenic artist, who is often known to the people 
only by his work, has some extraordinary duties to 
perform. When a combination or company has a date 
at a theatre a week or so beforehand, they send on 
small models of the scenery they require for their play. 
These models greatly resemble in their general appear- 
ance and size the toy theatres that are sold to children. 
The stage carpenter, who goes around day and night 
treading the stage in his own shuffling and careless 
way, and who is entirely unknown to the public, takes 
the models and builds frames over which canvas or 
muslin is spread. Then the canvas-covered frame is 
taken to the scene painter's bridge when it is ready for 
the colors. In many theatres the bridge is a platform 
extending across the stage, and distant from the rear 
wall about a foot. It is on a level with the flies, and 
the opening between it and the rear wall is used for 
lowering and hoisting a scene, which is hung on a large 
wooden frame while the artist is at work upon it. 
This frame moves up and down, being swung on pul- 
leys. The most improved theatres East and West, in 
addition to having the dressing-rooms, engines, etc., 
in a building separate from the theatre, have the paint 
bridge also separate. Great iron doors, three or four 
stories high, close the opening to the painting estab- 
lishment, and all scenery not in use on the stage 
during the run of a play is stored in the space under 
the bridge, while the bridge itself is really a long nar- 



THE ARMY OF ATTACHES. 201 

row room with an opening at one side of a foot or less, 




HELPING THE SCENE PAINTER. 

through which communication is had with the store- 



202 THE ARMY OF ATTACHES. 

room, and which gives space for the operation of the 
frames upon which scenes are painted. The artist's 
palette is a long table with compartments at the back 
for different colors, and there is besides a profusion of 
paint cans, jars, etc., with huge brushes that might 
serve the white washer's wide-spread purpose, and 
others thin enough to paint a lady's eye-lash. Water- 
colors are used, and great splotches of it are found 
along the lengthy palette. The removal of the paint- 
bridge from the stage is a blessing to actors and 
actresses alike, for often during a performance at night 
or a rehearsal in the morning broadcloths and silks re- 
ceived dashes of paint from the brush of the man at 
work in mid-air. Still actresses do not often keep shy 
of the paint-bridge. The ballet-girls are sometimes 
to be found there amusing themselves with the artist 
and his assistants, and they tell the story of two New 
York actresses who actually put on aprons, took hold 
of the big brushes, and assisted a scenic artist in 
"priming" his canvas. They were bantering him 
about the slow progress he was making with a scene 
that was wanted that night, when he remarked: "If 
you are in such a hurry for the scene, why don't you 
come up here and help me?" They accepted the in- 
vitation at once, and went to work in the manner I 
have suggested. The scene was ready that night, but 
the actresses were very tired. They painted no more. 
The " priming " of a scene which I have mentioned 
in the preceding anecdote, consists in laying a coat of 
white mixed with sizing upon the canvas. When this 
is dry the artist outlines his scene in charcoal. He 
first gets his perspective, which he does by attaching a 
long piece of twine to a pin fixed at his "vanishing 
point." Then blackening the string and beginning at 
the top he snaps it so as to make a black line which is 



THE ARMY OF ATTACHES. 203 

afterwards gone over with ink. This line is repro- 
duced whenever the drawing requires, and the advan- 
tage it affords will be readily understood by all who 
know anything about art or appreciate the value of 
good perspective in drawing. The sky of the scene is 
first filled in rapidly with a whitewash brush, after which 
follows a swift but clever completion of the view. 
The side scenes which are to be used as continuations 
of the " flat," as the principal or back part of a scene 
is called, must be in perspective with the rest of the 
picture. Scenic artists work very quickly, and can 
prepare a view in a very short time. Morgan, Mars- 
ton, Fox, and Voegtlin, in New York ; Goatcher, in 
Cincinnati ; and Dick Halley, Tom Noxon, and Ernest 
Albert, in St. Louis, are among the best scene painters 
in the country. The salaries paid in this branch of 
the profession vary from $40 to $150 a week. A New 
York artist, it is said, who works very fast, receives as 
much as $100 to $150 for one or two scenes. When it 
is taken into consideration that at the end of the run 
of a play these scenes are blotted out to make way for 
others, the price paid for them is simply enormous. 

The old woman of the company is an elderly 
matronly female, who may be found hovering in the 
wings of every theatre. She is nobody's mother in 
particular, but talks in a motherly way to all, and ex- 
ercises a special supervision over the female members 
of the company. In strange contrast to her is the 
call-boy, a mischievious devil-ma} r -care young fellow, 
who calls Booth "Ed," Bernhardt " Sallie," and has 
familiar appellations for the most prominent and digni- 
fied people in the profession. It is his business to call 
performers from the green-room in time for them to 
take their " cue" for going on the stage, and this is 
about all he has to do except to make trouble, to learn 




(204) THE "OLD WOMAN " OF THE COMPAXY. 



THE ARMY OF ATTACHES. 



205 



secrets that he whispers about, and to become an imp- 
ish nuisance revelling in more fun and freedom than 
anybody else behind the scenes. Aimee took a liking 
to one of these little gentlemen once and fed him 
cigarettes, and let him tell her lies ad libitum. She 
said she liked him because he was such " a charming 
little beast." Alice Oates, of flagrant fame, allowed 
one of them out West to get into her good graces, and 
repented it, when she found that he disappeared sud- 








THE .ESTHETIC DRAMA. 

denly one day with a lot of her jewels. The call-boy 
comes last in the list of attaches, but he is not at all 
least. If you believe all he tells you, like the usher, 
you will think him a great man, for he often boasts of 
playing poker with John McCullough, of taking Lotta 
out for a drive, or of rolling ten-pins with Salvini or 
some equally illustrious representative of the highest 
dramatic art. A call-boy gets about $10 a week, and 
in five cases out of ten he isn't worth ten cents. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



STAGE-STRUCK. 



George McManus, treasurer of the Grand Opera 
House, St. Louis, in addition to being a good story- 
teller, is as fond of a practical joke as he is of three 
meals a day. During the season of 1880—81 George 
was at the box-office window, one day, looking out at 
the Dutch lager beer saloon across the street, and 
wondering why it was that people were so fond of 
"schooners," when a tall, thin, melancholy, Hamlet- 
like young fellow, with the air and clothes of rusticity, 
stalked slowly into the vestibule and up to the box- 
office. 

" Well, sir," said George, as the young man got in 
front of the window and fixed his elbows on the sill. 

"I want to be an actor," the young man began; 
"I kem here from Cahokia, a small place you may 
have heern about, and I'd like to go on the stage and 
play somethin' or other." 

" Oh," answered George, smiling, " if that's all you 
want I can fix you. When do you want to begin?" 

" I am ready to start in right neow," was the reply. 
" I told the old folks when I left the house last night 
that they needn't expect to see me ag'in 'til my name 
wuz on the walls an' the sides o' houses in letters 
more'n a yard long, an' I'm goin' to do it or die." 

" I see you're made out of the right kind of stuff," 
said George, "and I'll give you a first-class chance. 
You're ambitious and you're lean — lean enough to 

(206) 



STAGE-STRUCK. 207 

play Falstaff — and lean and ambitious people always 
make their mark. Have you ever heard of the lean 
and hungry Cassius? — I don't mean a depositor at 
the door of a busted bank, but the Cassius of ' Julius 
Caesar.' I'll bet you feel just like him now ; you look 
like him." 

The Cahokian candidate for Thespian honors blushed. 

" Well," the practical joker went on, " you can begin 
work this morning. The minstrels will be here in a 
few minutes for rehearsal, and they want a new box 
of gags. Go over to Harry Noxon, at the Comique, 
and ask him to give you a box of the best gags he's 
got. Tell him they're for me." 

With a face wreathed in smiles the Cahokian Cassius 
stalked off towards the Comique while George went 
out and gathered in a few friends to enjoy the joke. 
The Cahokian went to the Comique, and Harry Noxon, 
understanding what was meant, gave the poor fellow a 
box half filled with bricks, and telling him that was all 
he had, directed him to go up to Pope's and ask for 
Ed. Zimmerman, who would fill the box for him. 
Shouldering the heavy load, the Cahokian moved 
bravely ouj; towards Pope's, six and one-half blocks 
away. He was pretty tired when he got there. Ed. 
Zimmerman, in obedience to his request, sent the box 
around to the stage-door, where the carpenter removed 
the lid and added bricks enough to fill the receptacle. 
Nailing the lid on again the stage-struck youth was 
once more presented with it. It took a great deal of 
exertion for him to get the box to his shoulder, and 
when he had it there he staggered along under the load 
like a drunken man, to the Opera House seven blocks 
away. When he reached the Opera House, McManus 
said the Minstrels had changed their mind about using 
any new gags, and requested the Cahokian to carry 



208 STAGE-STRUCK. 

them over to the Olympic. The Cahokian looked at 
McManus, then took a woeful and weary look at the 
box, and, wiping the perspiration from his high fore- 
head and thin face, he swung his slouch hat over his 
brow and remarked that he w r as tired. 

" I say, Mister," he said, " if that's what a fellow's 
got to do to be a actor I'd sooner plow corn er 
run a thrashin'-masheen twenty-three hours out'n the 
twenty -four. I thought there was more fun in the 
business than carryin' around two or three hundred 
pounds of iron or somethin' like it, all day in the sun. 
I guess I'll throw up my engagement. Good-bye." 
And he strode out into the street, while George and 
his friends had a laugh that was as hearty as the lungs 
that led in the merriment were loud and strong. 

There are a few young men and young ladies in this 
world who do not take the same view of the stage that 
the Cahokian took : they imagine there is a great deal 
of fun in being an actor or an actress, and that it does 
not require any special effort to arrive at the point 
where a person becomes a full-fledged professional. In 
this they are just as much mistaken as was the Caho- 
kian, and sometimes, after they have gone into training 
for the profession, they tire of the hard work as readily 
almost as the stage-struck young farmer tired of car- 
rying the box of " gags." There is a general wild 
desire among the young people of this country to 
make players of themselves. They dream that the 
sta^e is something like a s*e¥lnth heaven where there is 
nothing but music and singing and golden glory for- 
ever — admirers, wealth, and an uninterrupted good 
time generally. They do not know anything about 
the long and toilsome hours of work and the compar- 
atively poor pay that form the portion of all who are 
not at the top of the dramatic ladder. They never 



STAGE-STRUCK 



209 



pause to think if they are girls of the temptations into 
which they will be thrown, and of the slanders that will 
be uttered against their fair names upon the slightest 
provocation. All they see or know of theatrical life is 
its bright gilded side, the tinsel that looks valuable, the 



y§Mti 




KITTY BLANCHARD, 



jewels that are paste, the silks and satins that are not 
what they seem, and the beautiful faces and bright smiles 
beneath which are wrinkles and toil-laden looks, when 
the actress is in her home plying her needle or studying 



210 STAGE-STRUCK. 

the long lengths that belong to her part. It is because 
people are so ignorant of the realities of dramatic life 
that so many become stage-struck and go around strik- 
ing tragic attitudes and rating imaginary scenery in 
a rabid rant through Othello's address to the Sen- 
ate, or Hamlet's scene with his mother in the lat- 
ter' s chamber. There are forty thousand young ladies 
in this land who want to be Mary Andersons, and as 
many more who think they can kick as cutely as Lotta, 
while one hundred thousand semi-bald young men im- 
agine they could out-Hamlet Booth if they had a 
chance, or lift the mantle of Forrest from John Mc- 
Cullough if the latter dared enter the ring with them. 
A Louisville newspaper reporter gave a very humor- 
ous description of an epidemic of this kind that pre- 
vailed in Mary Anderson's home city some time ago. 
" One half the girls of the city," said the writer, 
" are stage-struck ! — stark, staring stage-struck. Hun- 
dreds of residences have been converted into amateur 
play-houses, where would-be female stars tear their 
hair, rave and split the air with their arms, and stalk 
majestically across imaginary stages to the imaginary 
music of imaginary orchestras, and amid burst of im- 
aginary applause and showers of imaginary boquets. 
In the dry goods stores young ladies rush up to the 
counters with inspiration dropping from their eyes in 
great hunks and in hollow tones command the affright- 
ened clerk to — 

" Haste thee, cringing vassal ; pr-r-r-r-ro-duce and 
br-r-r-r-r-ing into our pr-r-r-r-r-esence thy sixty-five- 
cent hose !" 

In the ice cream saloons the maidens shove the cool- 
ing cream into their lovely mouths and sweetly mur- 
mur to their escorts : — 

"Now, by me faith, Orlando, but is't not a nectar 



STAGE-STRUCK. 211 

fit for the gods? Speak, me beloved; is't not a, 
dainty dish that graces our festal board? " 

And practical Orlando replies : — 

" I bet you." 

On the street-car the maiden stalks forward toward 
the driver and howls : — 

" What, ho, there, charioteer, give me, I pray thee, 
diminutive coin for this one dollar bond an' I will upon 
the instant requite thee for thy services upon this 
journey." 

When one of them catches a flea she holds the vic- 
tim at arms' length and roars : — 

" Ha-a-a-a ! I have thee at last, vile craven. For 
many nights thy visits to me chamber have br-r-r-ought 
unrest. Now at la-a-st thou art in me clutches and I 
will shower vengeance upon thy thr-rice accursed head. 
Die, vile in-gr-rate, and may the seething fires of per- 
dition engulf thy quivering soul forever-r-r-r ! " 

Then she opens her fingers a little to get a good 
squeeze at him and the flea hops out and goes home 
to tell its folks about it. They have got it bad and 
none of the old established methods of treatment seem 
to avail. 

It is the very height of absurdity to see an amateur 
company on a stage, and particularly on the stage of a 
theatre. In the midst of the most solemn tragedy one 
is compelled to laugh at them. If they have on tights 
and trunks they try to get their hands into side pock- 
ets, and if they carry swords the weapon gets tangled 
in their legs, and ten to one after the blade has left its 
scabbard, the wearer will be unable to get it back 
again. Then the way they walk upon each other's 
heels, and tread upon each other's corns ; jostle each 
other in the entrances and stick in their lines is enough 
to make one of the painted figures in the proscenium 



212 STAGE-STRUCK. 

arch tear itself out of its medalion frame and die from 
excessive laughter. More ludicrous even than their 
performance is the frantic rush a young amateur makes 
for the photograph gallery to have himself preserved 
as a courtier, and the equally rapid progress the young 
society lady makes in the same direction — anxious to 
have her picture taken no matter whether she plays a 
queen, a lady of honor, or a page in tights. She has 
no hesitancy in displaying her awkward limbs in a 
picture, although she would be ashamed to show her 
ankle in the parlor. 

Sometimes, instead of being made the subject of a 
practical joke on the street, as was the Cahokian of 
whom I told the story at the opening of this chapter, 
the joke is carried even farther — the aspirant being 
taken to the stage to give a sample of his work. Oc- 
casionally the show is given to the people of the thea- 
tre only, and the victim is quietly let through a trap, 
or guyed unmercifully, until he is glad of an oppor- 
tunity to make his escape. I was present on an 
occasion when an Illinoisan who had just graduated 
from college was allowed to go on the stage during a 
matinee performance, when the house was light, to 
speak his piece. He chose, of course, the selection he 
had inflicted on the suffering audience that attended 
the Illinois college graduating exercises. It was " The 
Warrior Bowed his Crested Head," a very dramatic 
recitation and a difficult one even for a good reader. 
The debutant was about eighteen years of age, tall, and 
manly looking. He came forward trembling, and did 
not attempt to proceed further than about twelve feet 
from the entrance, — making a school-boy bow he 
began. The audience wondered at the innocence 
and awkwardness of the entertainer who did not 
appear in the programme, but all soon understood the 




CO 

I— I 



214 STAGE-STRUCK. 

affair. The debutant had not reached the second line 
of the second verse, when bang came a pistol shot 
from the side of the stage. The- speaker ducked his 
head, trembled a little more than before, but went on. 
Bang went another pistol shot, and again the speaker 
acknowledged receipt of a shock by twitching his head 
and knocking his knees together. Still he kept on re- 
citing. Sheet-iron thunder rattled through the place, 
horns were blown, drums beaten, horse-rattles kept in 
motion and for more than half an hour pistol shots and 
flashes of fire kept coming from both sides of the stage. 
Still he spoke on, making gestures, twitching his limbs, 
and ducking his head until the last line was reached, — 
something about the hero's weapons shining no more 
among the spears of Spain, — when he bowed and re- 
tired hardly able to walk. He was an exception, 
however, to the general rule that stage-struck people 
are easily frightened out of their wits, under such cir- 
cumstances, and displayed such perseverance that he 
was complimented by the audience that had scarcely 
heard a word of what he had said — aloud burst of 
applause following his exit, which was continued until 
he came forward again and by a bow acknowledged 
their kindness. He must have been a brave fellow, for 
next day he was around at the manager's office asking 
for an engagement 

Managers are sometimes very cruel in their treatment 
of young people who are anxious to adopt the stage. I 
saw a newspaper item stating that at the Buckingham, 
a variety show in Louisville, a drop curtain was 
painted with the huge letters " N. G.," standing for 
" no good," and the manager ordered that this verdict 
be lowered in front of every performer who failed to 
show a fair degree of merit. It happened that the first 
to deserve this crushing verdict was a remarkably pretty 



STAGE-STRUCK. 215 

girl, and the audience sympathized with her. She had 
given an execrable dance, and was in the midst of a 
woeful recitation, when the " N. G." curtain was low- 
ered. The audience demanded her reappearance and 
did not permit anybody else to perform until the po- 
lice had arrested the more gallant and noisy among 
them. 

Amateurs who have any money to mingle with their 
desire to go on the stage find ready takers. I could 
name several gentlemen who are now alleged profes- 
sionals, with talents that are not even mediocre, who 
are tolerated in first-class company only because they 
pay for the privilege. One way a moneyed, stage- 
struck person has of getting before the public is to 
rent a theatre, and hire a company for a night or a 
week or a month, as the case may be. Society swells 
generally do this kind of thing, and they never suc- 
ceed. Marie Dixon was. under another name, a fairly 
well-to-do, well connected and popular lady of Mem- 
phis, Tennessee. She was old enough to have a mar- 
ried son, but did not appear to be more than thirty-six 
3 r ears. Her family had been very wealthy before the 
war, but that event swept away their possessions, as 
it swept away the possessions of many others. She 
was educated and accomplished, but was stage-struck. 
She had appeared at several amateur concert enter- 
tainments in Memphis, and the local papers having 
complimented her, and her friends having remarked 
that she was intended for an actress, she boldly, but 
foolishly, resolved to become one. She made up her 
mind to rival Mary Anderson, and to overshadow the 
memory of Ristori and all the great queens of the stage 
that have made a place for themselves in dramatic 
history. She paid $2,000 for the use of a St. Louis 
theatre for six nights ; she hired a very bad company 



216 STAGE-STRUCK. 

at, to them, very extravagant salaries ; she bought a 
wardrobe larger and in some respects richer than that 
of any established star ; then she came to St. Louis 
with her aged father, whose hopes and money were 
staked upon her ; they put up at the Lindell Hotel, 
and having left Memphis amid a flourish of trumpets, 
they fondly expected a wilder flourish when they 
returned. Miss Dixon appeared before the St. Louis 
public for six nights, and was a failure. She was no 
actress. She was ashamed to return to Memphis, and 
at this writing is still absent from there. The father 
went home, and, I hear, died of a broken heart. Dis- 
appointed friends at first pitied, then laughed at this 
accomplished lady, whose only fault seems to be that 
she was one of the grand army of the stage-struck. 

Miss Helen M. Lewis, a Charleston, South Caro- 
lina, heiress, who was anxious to become a Sarah 
Bernhardt or a Siddons, was taken in recently by an 
advertisement in a New York paper. The advertise- 
ment stated that a lady with a little capital was wanted 
to head a first-class dramatic combination, and that 
she might call at No. 602 Sixth Avenue, New York. 
Miss Lewis, who was without any training, answered 
the advertisement, and was told that $1,000 would be 
required to obtain the position, which was leading 
lady in the " Daniel Rochat " Combination, which was 
to begin its tour, by opening at the Boston Theatre. 
The negotiations were carried on with Maurice A. 
Schwab and Robert J. Rummel, who received $700 
from Miss Lewis, and furnished her with an alleged in- 
structor in the dramatic art. In order to be near the 
theatre Miss Lewis took rooms at the Revere House, 
Boston, where Schwab and Rummel also established 
themselves, and proceeded to study her part after en- 
gaging an alleged instructor recommended by Schwab. 

• 



STAGE-STRUCK. 



217 



After two or three weeks' standing off by the swin- 
dlers, who made constant demands on her for money 
for her wardrobe and other things, she chanced to call 
at the Boston Theatre to hear how the rehearsals of 




MARIE PRESCOTT AS " PARTHENIA. 

" Daniel Rochat " were progressing. She was told 
that there were no rehearsals in progress and learned 
that she had been swindled. Schwab and Rummel 
fled, leaving her to pay her hotel bill, but she nad them 
arrested in New York, and both on trial were, I 



218 STAGE-STRUCK. 

think, convicted and sent to the penitentiary, where 
plenty more managers of their stripe should be. 

Managers of what are known as " snap " companies 
are just as bad as Schwab and Rummel. They are 
glad to find some young lady or gentleman of means 
with lots of ready cash, and they do not hesitate to 
make victims even of professional people. The snap 
manager has no money of his own. He sits around a 
theatrical printing office all day, and pretends to be 
running a circuit of several towns. He watches his 
opportunity until a company comes along which he 
thinks he can take over to his villages. By false 
representations he manages to run up a big bill with the 
printer and to borrow money from the company, who 
go as far on his circuit as their means will permit, 
when the snap manager deserts them, leaving them to 
walk, or beg, or borrow their way home as best they 
can. Marie Prescott, who supported Salvini during 
his last American tour, and who is an actress of merit, 
was caught in the clutches of one of these managers at 
one time and was put in a pitiable plight. Other ac- 
tresses of good reputation have accepted engagements 
from strange managers only to find themselves mem- 
bers of fly -b} 7 -night combinations, giving their ser- 
vices without even the show of a probability of ever 
receiving any salary. 

Even so exalted a gentleman and eminent an impre- 
sario as Col. Mapleson is alleged to have brought a 
young girl from France promising he would make a 
fortune for her. The girl's father and mother accom- 
panied her, and when the gallant colonel of Italian 
troupes failed to keep his contract with the sweet 
singer, the father became enraged and wanted to fight 
a duel with the military impresario. The family went 
back to France almost penniless. 



STAGE-STRUCK. 219 

The worst class of managers in the world are those 
who take advantage of the ambition of young girls to 
effect their ruin. In some of the variety theatres man- 
agers pay salaries to young ladies or introduce them 
to the stage for none other than a base and iniquitous 
purpose. Frightful stories of this kind have been told, 
and the success real managers have met with in this 
direction has caused numerous pretenders to arise, and 
has made the theatrical profession a bait to secure in- 
nocent girls for Western and Southern bawdv-houses, 
concert dives, and low dancing-halls. I read the fol- 
lowing advertisement in the Globe- Democrat one 



PERSONAL —Wanted, three or four young ladies to join a trav- 
elling company. Address Manager, this office. 

I knew that reputable theatrical managers did not 
advertise in this style — indeed, they need not adver- 
tise at all, for there is always plenty of talent in the 
market — and came to the conclusion that the 
"Personal" was a veil to hide some piece of dirty 
work. Therefore I sat down, and, in varying feminine 
hands, wrote letters to the manager, asking for an 
opening. Two letters, with their corresponding an- 
swers, are here selected as specimens of the remainder, 
answers to all having been received. One of the ap- 
plications ran as follows : — 



St. Lours, February 6, 1878. 
Mr. Manager : I want to adopt the stage ; have ap- 
peared as an amateur, and will join you if I can learn. 
I am seventeen, a blonde, small, and my friends say I 
look well on the stage. I sing and perform on the guitar. 
I have a friend — a very pretty brunette — who is very 
anxious to go with me, but she has never acted. She is 
Please let me know where I can see you, 



220 STAGE-STRUCK. 

if you have not already employed enough; but I must 
be particular, as my mother does not want me to go 
away. Address Ettie Holan, 

City Post-Office. 
I will call at general delivery and get it. 

The other was ' written in this strain and in these 
words : — 

St. Louis, February 6, 1877. 

Dear Sir : I saw your advertisement in this morn- 
ing's Globe- Democrat, asking for three or four young 
ladies to join a travelling theatrical company, and as I 
am desirous of going on the stage, and am of good 
form and pretty fair appearance, and have a pretty 
good voice, I would wish to join }'our company. I 
have never appeared on any regular stage, but made 
several amateur appearances, which were pronounced 
very successful. I have an ambition for the stage, 
and think I would succeed. I am seventeen years of 
age, and medium height, with black hair and dark 
eyes, and am a tasty dresser. I hope you will not 
pass over my application, but will receive it favorably. 
Anxiously awaiting an early reply, I remain, respect- 
fully yours, etc., Lizzie Hilger. 

P. S. — Address your reply to me to the post-office. 

These and the others were all calculated to make the 
" manager " feel that he had captured a whole shoal of 
gudgeons. He would certainly reply to such unsophis- 
ticated notes as these, and he did. The letters were 
placed in the newspaper office box on Wednesday after- 
noon, and bright and early on Thursday morning, I 
went around to the post-office, presented my string of 
names, and met with no little opposition from the gen- 
tlemanly delivery clerk, at first, who naturally did not 
like to give an armful of mail for females to one who 



STAGE-STRUCK. 221 

was not a female. The situation was explained, how- 
ever, and a half dozen rose-tinted envelopes, all prop- 
erly backed and stamped, and each containing an 
epistle, was the result. They were opened one after 
another, and the rose-tinted and perfumed pages of 
each told, in a bold running hand exactly the same 
story — "pass the corner of Eightli and Locust Streets," 
at hours varying from noon to sundown on Thursday 
afternoon. It was just what had been expected. Ettie 
Holan, the petite blonde, who could play the guitar, 
was answered as follows : — 

St. Louis, Mo., February 6, 1878. 
Miss Ettie Holan : Your letter through the G.-D. 
at hand. We desire to engage several young ladies for 
the company now traveling, and among numerous ap- 
plicants note yours, and think it possible to fix an 
engagement both for yourself and lady friend. As you 
are very particular about your folks, you might possibly 
object to coming to our office, so if you desire the en- 
gagement, please pass the corner of Locust and Eighth 
Streets with your lady friend about four (4) o'clock p. 
m. to-morrow (Thursday), the 7th. 

Yours, respectfully, Harry Kussell. 

And Lizzie Hilger, with nothing to recommend her 
but a voice and figure that she had recommended her- 
self, was encouraged in her ambitious aspirations in the 
following manner : — 

St. Louis, Mo., February 6, 1878. 
Miss Lizzie Hilger : Your favor at hand. Amon^ 
numerous applicants I have remembered yours. We 
desire several young ladies to strengthen the company 
for our Chicago and Boston engagements, and desire 
to meet you personally, if possible, to-morrow after- 
noon. You may object to coming to our office, so 



222 



STAGE-STRUCK. 



please pass the corner of Locust and Eighth Streets 
to-morrow afternoon (Thursday) about 2:30 (half- 
past two) o'clock. 

Yours, respectfully, Harry Russell, 

Manager. 

Here then was the " manager's " little game. Of 




MME. FANNY JANAUSHEK. 



course Harry Russell was not the man's name at all, 
and of course he had no office to which either Miss 
Ettie Holan or Miss Lizzie Hilger, or any of the four 



STAGE-STRUCK. 223 

other girls who had applied for positions through me, 
" might object to coming," and of course he had noth- 
ing to do with strengthening any company's Boston 
or Chicago engagements. It was evident now, if not 
before, that the advertisement was a snare to trap the 
unwary and to pull the wool over the eyes of the inno- 
cent and unsuspecting, and I made up my mind to pay 
a visit to the locality named in the above letters. 

A visit was paid, after dinner, to the proposed place 
of meeting. On the way up I met a detective friend, 
to whom my business was disclosed. The detective 
said he would go along and "spot" the fellow for 
future reference, and he did. Handsome Harry was 
found at his post, gazing up and down and across the 
street. He was standing in front of a saloon, on the 
corner, and a friend was hard by, who was to witness 
the success of the little game. Now and then a young 
lady passed to or from her home, and every time she 
came within sight " Manager " Harry began to prepare 
himself for the " mash." The coat front was read- 
justed, the shirt collar straightened up, the hat lifted 
from the head and the fingers run through the hair, 
and, as a last and finishing touch, the ends of his dainty 
moustache were fingered and carefully set away from his 
lips with a silk handkerchief. But here came the 
young lady. How he stared her in the face as she came 
towards him, ogled her when near by, and cast a dis- 
consolate and disappointed look after her as she passed. 
Then he went back to communicate to his friend that 
she was probably " not the one," or that " maybe she 
weakened," and again took his stand to watch the next 
comer. This little business was gone through with as 
many times as there w T ere young ladies who passed. At 
last it was evident to the two persons who had their eyes 
on Harry that he was beginning to weaken, and was 



224 STAGE-STRUCK. 

about to leave the place for a time at least. Under 
these circumstances there was only one thing to do — 
to go over and have a talk with him about the show 
business and make further engagements for the young 
ladies who were so anxious to blossom forth on the 
stage. The detective walked up to the man who was 
presumably Harry Russell. 

" Do you know of a man named Harry Russell stop- 
ping about here? " asked the detective. 

Harry was with his friend now, and both became al- 
most livid in the face and were evidently taken back 
by the inquiry. 

" N-no ; w-what is he? " stammered out Harry. 

" I believe he's manager of a theatrical company." 

"Harry" had somewhat regained his mental equi- 
librium by this time, and answered positively : " Don't 
know him ; never heard of him." 

" Have you seen any man around in the past half 
hour? Russell made an engagement to meet me 
here." 

" I haven't been here but about ten minutes," and 
away "Harry" and his friend sailed. 

The detective and myself had been watching 
the pseudo manager for over two hours from a room 
across the street, and, of course, knew there was no 
truth in the measure he placed upon the time he was 
watching and waiting for victims that never came. 
He was not a theatrical man, but some dirty scamp. 

Some time ago an advertisement of the same char- 
acter as the "Personal" quoted above, appeared in 
the Chicago papers, and many young ladies, anxious 
to adopt the stage as a profession, applied for posi- 
tions. They obtained admission to the quasi manager, 
who, when no resistance was made by the applicants, 
shipped them to Texas and other Southern points, 



STAGE-STRUCK. 225 

where they found themselves perhaps penniless in the 
midst of a life of uncertainties, into which they had 
been duped and to which they had been sold. Many 
of these had been, and would still be, respectable 
young girls and ornaments to their respective home 
circles, were it not for the serpent with the fascinating 
eyes that peeped out at them from under the three or 
four lines in the advertising columns of that Chicago 
paper. Discoveries of the same kind were made in 
several cities of the East, and it is dreadful to contem- 
plate the havoc which must have been wrought by this 
means, for surely many of the hundreds of really good 
girls, who are always sure to answer such an advertise- 
ment in the innocent belief that it may be the means 
of making Neilsons, Cushmans, Morrises or some other 
equally firmamentary individual in the galaxy of the 
stage of them, and who refused to be debauched, were 
sorely disappointed in the result of their apparent good 
fortune in obtaining the recognition of the " manager." 
The following letter from a band of stage-struck 
young men of color is an extraordinary document, and 
may be taken as a sample of the letters received every 
day by theatrical managers : — 

Kansas City, 1789 [1879], January 14. Mr. De 
Bar, Dear Sir, I take thes opportunity of witring you 
theas few lines to ask you for an engagement at the 
Orepry [Opera] house if you can as we would like to 
get it if we can. i and my trop can do a great meny 
perform ence on the stage. W. H. Terrell he can do 
the Iron Joyrl [iron jaw] performence and do a Jig 
Dance and a Clog and Double Song and Dance and 
other tricks. Mr. Benjermer Frankler [Benjamin 
Franklin] waltz With a pail of water on his head and 
plays the frence harp the sanetime on the stage and 
laying down with it on his head and roal all over the 



226 STAGE-STRUCK. 

floor and Jump 6 feet hiagh in the air on hand and feet, 
allso and we have the Best french harp players in the 
world that ever plaid on one. and leaping through a 
hoop of fire same as a circus. If you can git it for 




ROSE EYTINGE. 

me pleas write soon and let me know. Sam Chrisman 
is one of my atcters. yours Truly, B. Franklin. 

Excuse writing and paper. This is a Cold trop. 

It is hardly necessary for me to say Ben De Bar did 
not give the '* Cold trop " an engagement. Poor old 
Ben was dead at that time. 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE REHEARSAL. 



When the seeker after histrionic honors has at last 
crossed the threshold of the stage, he or she will find 
it entirely different from the glitter and glory with 
which the imagination had clothed things theatrical. 
The first revelation made to new-comers in the pro- 
fession is the rehearsal. This generally begins about 
ten a. m. and ends about two p. m. In the old days of 
stock companies, performers had more laborious work to 
perform than men who carry railroad iron out of, or into, 
steamboats. Often there were new plays every night, 
which meant new parts to be memorized, and rehearsals 
every day. Leaving the theatre at eleven p. m., 
about the usual hour of closing a performance at that 
time, the actor took his part with him, and instead of 
going to his bed, was obliged to sit up and study his 
lines — no matter how many lengths there were. 
Torn and worn out with his night's work on the stage, 
and the mental toil that followed, it was often al- 
ready morning when the actor sought his couch. He 
was then obliged to be up in a few hours and at the 
theatre at ten. If he absented himself there was a fine 
that would materially reduce his already low salary. 
Where was the room for enjoyment for the actor or 
actress in those days? There was little opportunity 
given to anybody at all employed upon the stage to be 
of dissolute habits or to indulge in any of the excesses 
that pulpit-pounders and their intolerant and intoler- 

(227) 



228 THE REHEARSAL. 

able followers generally charged against the profes- 
sion. These super-moral individuals could not make 
a distinction between the stage of the days of Mrs. 
Bracegirdle and Mistress Woffington, of Mrs. Jordan 
and Mrs. Robinson, when filth and licentiousness pre- 
vailed because the public found no fault with it, and 
the same things were prevalent in ranks of the very 
best society. Now that we have travelling combina- 
tions, and that one part will last a man or woman who 
pays attention to business for a year or more, the pro- 
fession is not so heavily taxed ; still there is plenty of 
work, and there is little, if any, time to devote to any 
of the pleasures or excesses that prurient piety points 
out as the portion of players. But this is moralizing- 
Let us get back to the rehearsal. Less than ten years 
ago a rehearsal might be found going on in any theatre 
in the country between the hours of ten a. m. and 
two p. m. Now it is a rare thing to find a rehearsal ex- 
cept on Monday, and in the few cities where Sunday- 
night performances are given this day may be set 
apart, when the opening or first performance is on the 
same night. As travelling goes now, a company 
reaches a town either the night before, or the morning 
of the day for their initial entertainment. No matter 
what the time of arrival — unless it be, as often hap- 
pens, that the company gets off the train and to the 
theatre fifteen minutes before the curtain is to go up — 
every member of the company will be expected at the 
theatre in the morning for rehearsal, not so much to 
go through their parts as to familiarize themselves 
with the entrances and exits and the general arrange- 
ment of the house. The stage manager is there and 
the orchestra is in its place. If it is comic opera there 
is a rehearsal of the music, and if it is one of the 
musico-farcical or burlesque pieces that were epidemic 



THE REHEARSAL. 229 

during the past two seasons, the play will be rehearsed 
that the musicians may come in with their flare up at 
the proper time. 

A rehearsal is calculated to take all the starch out of 
the ambition of a neophyte, and to drench his hopes in 
a sorrowful manner. The stage bereft of its flood of 
light, of its gorgeous color and wealth of splendor, is 
the darkest, dreariest, and most commonplace region 
in the world. The buzz of saw and the clatter of 
hammer are heard in all directions, while men in aprons, 
overalls, and greasy caps are making the saw-and-ham- 
mer noises, and others even less romantic are dragging 
about scenery or boxes ; gas men are at work on the 
foot-lights, and there is noise and confusion enough to 
set a whole villagefnll of sybarites crazy. Down in 
front a group of ladies and gentlemen are moving 
about and talking. These are the players — the peo- 
ple we saw the night before in rich attire, with glowing 
jewels and surrounded with all the magnificence, 
wealth could bestow or royalty command, Now, the 
king's crown is a black slouch hat and the royal robes 
are a dark sack coat and vest, light trousers, and white 
shirt with picadilly collar. The queen has a last-year 
bonnet on her head and a water-proof cloak envelopes 
her form. The other actors are also in e very-day dress, 
some showing that their owners patronize first-class 
tailors and others that they have been handed down 
from the shelves of cheap ready-made clothing houses. 
The stage manager is pushing everybody around, and 
the actors and actresses are talking at one another in 
lines. Some have books of the play, for they are re- 
hearsing, and all rattle over their lines as if running a 
race with a locomotive that is drawing Vanderbilt's 
special car over the road at its topmost speed. It is 
impossible to understand what they are saying, and 



230 



THE REHEARSAL. 



the on-looker would be willing to wager a $10 gold 
piece against a silver dime with a hole in it that the 
performers do not hear or understand each other. 
But a California journalist has written a veiy truthful 




AGNES BOOTH. 



and funny account of a rehearsal he attended in San 
Francisco, Olive Logan has it in her book, but it is 
so good I will make use of it again. Here it is : — 
You may get as perfect an idea of a play by seeing it 



THE REHEARSAL. 231 

rehearsed as you would of Shakespeare from hearing it 
read in Hindustani. The first act consists in an exhi- 
bition of great irritability and impatience by the stage 
manager at the non-appearance of certain members 
of the troupe. At what theatre? Oh, never mind 
what theatre. We will take liberties and mix them 
thus : — 

Stage Manager (calling to some one at the front en- 
trance) : " Send those people in." 

The people are finally hunted up one by one and go 
rushing down the passage and on to the stage like hu- 
man whirlwinds. 

Leading Lady (reading) : " My chains a-a-a-a-a 
rivet me um-um-um (carpenters burst out in a tre- 
mendous fit of hammering) this man." 

Star : * * But I implore — buz-buz-buz — never — 
um-um " (great sawing of boards somewhere). 

Rehearsal reading, mind you, consists in the occa- 
sional distinct utterance of a word, sandwiched in be- 
tween large quantities of a strange, monotonous sound, 
something between a drawl and a buz, the last two or 
three words of the part being brought out with an 
emphatic jerk. 

Here Th n rushes from the rear : — 

" Now my revenge." 

Star (giving directions) : " No, you Mrs. H — s — n, 
stand there, and then when I approach you, Mr. 
B — r — y, step a little to the left ; then the soldiers 
pitch into the villagers and the villagers into the sol- 
diers, and I shoot you and escape into the mountains." 

Stage Manager (who thinks differently) : * 'Allow 
me to suggest, Mr. B s, that" — (here the ham- 
mering and sawing burst out all over the stage and 
drown everything). 

This matter is finally settled. The decision of the 



232 THE REHEARSAL. 

oldest member of the troupe having been appealed to, 

is adopted. Then Mr. Mc h is missing. The 

manager bawls "Mc h!" Everybody bawls, 

«Mc h!" "Gimlet! Gimlet!" This is the 

playful rehearsal appellation for Hamlet. Gimlet is at 
length captured and goes rushing like a locomotive 
down the passage. 

Stage Manager : " Now, ladies and gentlemen. All 
on!" 

They tumble up the stage steps and gather in groups. 
H — 1 — n fences with everybody. Miss H — w — n exe- 
cutes an imperfect pas seul. 

Leading Lady : < * I-a-a-a-a love-um-um-um — and-a- 
a-a another — ' ' 

Miss H — 1 — y, Miss M — d — e, or any other woman : 
" This engage-a-a-a my son's um-um Bank Exchange." 

A — d — n raises his hands and eyes to heaven, say- 
ing : " Great father ! he's drunk ! " 

Leading Lady (very energetically) : " Go not, dear- 
est Hawes ! The Gorhamites are a-a-a-um-um devour 
thee." 

Mrs. S— n— s : " How ! What ! ! " 

Mrs. J h : "Are those peasantry up there? " 

Boy comes up to the stage and addresses the mana- 
ger through his nose : " Mr. G., I can't find him any- 
where." 

H y J n i " For as much as I " — (terrible 

hammering). 

Nasal boy: "Mr. G., I can't find him anywhere." 

L — c — h : * « Stop my paper ! ' ' 

Manager: " Mr. L., that must be brought out very 
strong; thus, Stop my paper! " 

L — c — h (bringing it out with an emphasis which 
raises the roof off the theatre) : " Stop my paper I " 

The leading lady here goes through the motion of 



THE REHEARSAL. 233 

fainting and falls against the star, who is partly unbal- 
anced by her weight and momentum. The star then 
rushes distractedly about, arranging the supernumer- 
aries to his liking. Ed — s and B — y walk abstract- 
edly to and fro. S — n — r dances to a lady near the 
wings. These impromptu dances seem to be a favor- 
ite pastime on the undressed stage. 

Second Lady: " Positively a-a-a- Tom Fitch um- 
um amusing a-aitch a-aitch a-aitch !" 

Tt puzzled me for a long time to find out what was 
meant by this repetition of a-aitch. It is simply 
the reading of laughter. A-aitch is where " the 
laugh comes in." The genuine pearls of laughter are 
reserved for the regular performance. Actresses can- 
not afford to cachinate during the tediousness and 
drudgery of rehearsal. Usually they feel like crying. 
Stage Manager: "We must rehearse this last act 
over again." 

Everybody at this announcement looks broadswords 
and daggers. There are some pretty pouts from the 
ladies, and some deep but energetic profanity from the 
gentlemen. 

The California journalist has just about done justice 
to the subject. I have attended rehearsals when it 
was utterly impossible to comprehend whether they 
were reading Revelations or going through Mother 
Goose's melodies. Drilling the chorus for opera is 
attained by the same trials and tribulations as rehear- 
sals for dramatic representations. The leader grows 
furious at the surrounding noise, and the distractions 
that members of the chorus give themselves up to. It 
is a bad thing to get them together at first and harder 
still to keep them together afterwards. When the 
leader with an atmosphere of the kindest humor sur- 
rounding his smooth head holds his baton aloft imagin- 



234 



THE REHEARSAL. 




ing that everything is all right, says : '« Now, ladies and 
gentlemen, all together," he gracefully lowers his arm, 
but suddenly arises in an angry mood, for they are not 



THE REHEARSAL, 



235 



all together. About one-half the throng begin, and 
the other half loiter behind to drop in at intervals. 
And so it goes from act to act until the opera is fin- 
ished. The singers are in street dress and the shab- 
biest of garments brush against the most stylish. In 
rehearsing grand opera only oue act is taken at a time, 




TRAINING BALLET DANCERS. 

and the scenes presented, with the mellifluous Italian 
and the sweet-scented garlic floating around the stage, 
are picturesque to the eye, charming to the ear, and 
simply entrancing to the nose. The principals re- 
hearse sitting. 

Ballet dancers have as hard work, if not harder than 



23l) THE fcEHEARSAL. 

any other class in the profession. They must rehearse 
or practice daily, and for hours and hours at a time. 
The maitre is there with cane and eye-glass, with velvet 
coat and lavender trousers, to show them the motions, 
and line after line the strength and limberness of the 
limbs of the corps de ballet are tested. From the 
premiere who sits with sealskin sack over her stage 
costume with her pet dog by her side down to the 
latest acquisition to the maitre 's (the ballet master's) 
corps, all must be on hand to rehearse with or without 
music. In the latter instance the steps are slowly but 
carefully gone through. Not only is there a day 
rehearsal, but there is private individual rehearsal of 
the steps at night previous to going on the stage ; for 
there is much grace in a corps de ballet, and no girl in 
love with her art wishes to be considered awkward or 
in the rear ; hence the emulation that exists, and the 
private rehearsals in the dressing-room. Many of these 
ballet-dancers live poor lives, getting 'salaries which 
after buying their stage dresses leaves them little for the 
cupboard and very little to waste upon street costumes. 
Some are frail, and have admirers whose purse-strings 
they pull wide open, and are therefore able to rustle 
around in silks and sport rich golden and jewelled or- 
naments, while the honest girls must sup at home on 
crusts and share the opprobrium their shamless com- 
panions bring on the entire class. Ballet girls every- 
where have a throng of giddy, dissipating male follow- 
ers, and those who resist the temptations thrown in 
their way are deserving praise rather than condemna- 
tion. 

Just as the Spanish have their Mauzai, the Hindoos 
their Nantch girls, the Japanese that remarkable 
dance travellers have written so frequently and so much 
about, and each country its own particular sway or 




\ 



NATIONAL DANCES, 



(237) 






238 THE REHEARSAL. 

whirl, so this country seems to have taken kindly to 
the ballet. When a ballet dancer — one of the fa- 
mous dancers of the beginning of the century — pre- 
sented herselff or the first time to an Albany, New York, 
audience, the ladies rushed from the sta^e and there 
was almost a panic. But it did not take long to 
accustom the Albanians to the undraped drama, and 
they are as fond of it now as any of the rest of the not 
over-scrupulous people of the country. Not so many 
years ago, there was a ballet every night in .the first- 
class variety theatres ; now there are few, except in 
the East, that have this feature, and for this reason — 
the abandonment of it in the West and South — the 
people who draw conclusions from everything they see 
and hear cry out that the ballet is dying out. This is 
not so. The ballet has been dropped from the list of 
attractions in the West, because the managers thought 
it too costly an institution for them to carry, and not 
because the people did uot want it. Some of the best 
paying theatrical investments of the day are based 
upon the fascinating and drawing qualities of a dis- 
played female limb. Burlesque with its blonde attri- 
butes kept the country in a rage for mauy years, and 
the reason why it is so rare now is that comic opera 
and the minor musical attractions of the quasi legiti- 
mate stage have usurped its principal feature — the leg 
show — and under the cover of art get the patronage 
of people who would shun burlesques, and at the same 
time supply the demand of about three- fourths of the 
male persuasion who are as fond of as much anatomy 
in pink tights as the law will allow them. If any one 
thinks the ballet is on the decay just let him wait 
until such an attraction is announced in his neighbor- 
hood and then stand back and count as the bald-headed 
brigade goes to the front. 



THE REHEARSAL. 239 

And for those who take any interest in the ballet, or 
care to hear anything about the women who have 
become famous as dancers, the following bit of his- 
tory which I found in Gleason's Pictoral for 1854 will 
be very agreeable reading: "A recent performance at 
her majesty's theatre in London has been signalized by 
an event unparalleled in theatrical annals, and one 
which, some two score years hence, may be handed 
down to a new generation by garrulous septuagena- 
rians as one of the most brilliant reminiscences of days 
gone by. The appearance of four such dancers as 
Taglioni, Cerito, Carlotta Grisi and Lucile Grahn, on 
the same boards and in the same pas, is truly what 
the French would call " une solemnite theatrale," and 
such a one as none of those who beheld it are likely to 
witness a^ain. It was therefore as much a matter of 
curiosity as of interest, to hurry to the theatre to 
witness this spectacle ; but every other feeling was 
merged in admiration when the four great dancers 
commenced the series of picturesque groupings with 
which this performance opens. Perhaps a scene was 
never witnessed more perfect in all its details. The 
greatest of painters, in his loftiest nights, could hardly 
have conceived, and certainly never executed, a group 
more faultless and more replete with grace and poetry 
than that formed by these four danseuses. Taglioni 
in the midst, her head thrown backwards, apparently 
reclining in the arms of her sister nymphs. Could 
such a combination have taken place in the ancient 
palmy days of art, the pencil of the painter and the 
pen of the poet would have alike been employed to 
perpetuate its remembrance. No description can 
render the exquisite, and almost ethereal grace of 
movement and attitude of these great dancers, and 
those who have witnessed the scene, may boast of 



240 THE REHEARSAL. 

having once, at least, seen the perfection of the art of 
dancing so little understood. There was no affectation, 
no apparent exertion or struggle for effect on the part 
of these gifted artistes ; and though they displayed their 
utmost resources, there was a simplicity and ease, the 
absence of which would have completely broken the 
spell they threw around the scene. Of the details of 
this performance it is difficult to speak. In the solo 
steps executed by each danseuse, each in turn seemed 
to claim pre-eminence. Where every one in her own 
style is perfect, peculiar individual taste alone may 
balance in favor of one or the other, but the award of 
public applause must be equally bestowed ; and the 
penchant for the peculiar style, and the admiration for 
the dignity, the repose and the exquisite grace which 
characterize Taglioni, and the dancer who has so bril- 
liantly followed the same track (Lucile Grahn), did 
not prevent the warm appreciation of the charming 
archness and twinkling steps of Carlotta Grisi, or the 
wonderful flying leaps and revolving bounds of Cerito. 
Though each displayed her utmost powers, the emula- 
tion of the fair dancers was unaccompanied by envy. 
Every time a shower of boquets descended on the 
conclusion of a solo pas of one or the other of the fair 
ballerine, her sister dancers came forward to assist her 
in collecting them. The applause was universal and 
equally distributed. This, however, did not take from 
the excitement of the scene. The house, crowded to 
the roof, presented a concourse of the most eager faces, 
never diverted, for a moment, from the performance ; 
and the extraordinary tumult of enthusiastic applause, 
joined to the delightful effect of the spectacle pre- 
sented, imparted to the whole scene • n interest and 
excitement that can hardly be * igined by those not 
present," 










\ 



M 



ELMORE. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



CANDIDATES FOR SHORT CLOTHES. 

About a week before the date of the opening of a 
spectacular play at any metropolitan theatre an adver- 
tisement reading something like this appears in the 
want columns of the daily papers : — 

~\XT ANTED — Three hundred girls for the ballet in "The Blue 
VV Huntsman," at Bishop's Theatre. Call at stage-door at 
ten a. m. Monday. 

In this simple advertisement the theatrical instinct 
which prompts the press agent to exaggerate facts con- 
cerning his attraction is very beautifully displayed. 
The number of girls wanted is probably not in excess 
of fifty ; still the local manager does not care to waste 
money upon this little advertisement without getting 
an advertisement for his show out of it. Monday 
morning brings a number of applicants — not as large 
a number as such an advertisement would have 
attracted in former years, but still enough to meet the 
demands of the ballet-master, who has come on ahead 
of his troupe to select the girls and give them a little 
training, just sufficient training to tone down the rough 
edges of their awkwardness and to drill them in the 
marches in which they will be expected to participate. 
The girls, as they come in singly or in pairs — shyly 
and coyly approaching the stage-door, but taking 
courage at the sight of the others who are there before 
them — are told to come around again in the afternoon, 
or perhaps the following morning to meet the ballet. 
16 (241) 



242 CANDIDATES FOR SHORT CLOTHES. 

There doesn't seem to be any particular choice in get- 
ting up a ballet of this kind. A round-shouldered, 
broad- waisted, squint-eyed, red- headed girl has her 
name entered on the stage manager's book as readily 
as the charming little blonde who looks as if she be- 
longed to the upper walks of life, and appears many 
degrees more accomplished, graceful, and intelligent 
than the strabismal, carroty-headed creature who has 
preceded her. When all have been registered, up to 
the requisite number, some of the astonished and de- 
lighted candidates, after having learned that they will 
receive $4 or $6, or, maybe, $8, for the week's ser- 
vices, lose themselves in the intricacies of the scenery 
and wonder at the beauties of the new world in which 
they find themselves. Their next visit brings them 
into the presence of the ballet master, who regards 
them physically, scrutinizing each as the name is 
called, and seldom rejecting any not absolutely de- 
formed who appear before him. They are sent to the 
costumer's and their work begins at once. All they 
are required to do is to run up and down or around the 
stage in drills and marches, or to group themselves in 
heart-rending tableaux at intervals during the dance. 
The best — that is, the girls who are quick to perceive 
and swift to accomplish the commands of the master, 
are selected for leaders and for the principal work in 
this subordinate branch of the spectacle. Day after 
day they are drilled until the night of the first per- 
formance arrives, when, often in tights that do not fit 
them, in costumes that are wrinkled and dirty, they 
flash in all their awkwardness and gloominess upon the 
scene, to be laughed at, and to detract from instead of 
adding to the beauty of the spectacle. 

A newspaper writer of experience in this line says : 
Few of those who observe and admire the graceful 



CANDIDATES FOR SHORT CLOTHES. 243 

attitudes, easy movements, and picturesque evolutions 
of the well-trained chorus or ballet in an opera have 
any adequate conception of the amount of practice and 
hard work necessary for the stage of perfection arrived 
at. A number of years ago, when ballet girls were in 
greater demand than at present, an advertisement in- 
serted in New York papers or those of any other large 
city for material to fill up the coi % ps de ballet would 
bring in applicants by dozens, and sometimes even by 
hundreds. The same is true in a less degree to-day, 
but at that time the wages paid to working girls were 
far more meagre than at the present time, and the few 
dollars per week to be obtained in t.he theatre was a 
princely sum by comparison, and, though the engage- 
ment be but a few weeks, the opportunity was gladly 
accepted. 

The great majority of these applicants come from 
the lower working class, who are induced by pecuniary 
motives alone to exhibit themselves. They show in 
their faces and forms the traces of hard work and poor 
living, and an expert master of the ballet has need of 
all his skill to train them and dispose them on the stage 
so that their natural disadvantages of form may be 
kept as much as possible from public view. Now and 
then, however, there is a case where the glamour of 
the stage has so fascinated girls in better circumstances 
that they are ready to begin at any round of the lad- 
der in a profession that seems so entirely imbued 
with roseate tints. It is the exception, and not the 
rule, for these to persevere ; for, when brought face to 
face with the stern realities of the case, their ardor, is 
dampened, the world seems hollow, " their dolls are 
stuffed with sawdust," and they are prepared to cry 
out vanitas van? latum, and enjoy the rest of their 
stage experiences from the other side of the foot-lights. 



244 CANDIDATES FOR SHORT CLOTHES. 

These girls vary somewhat in age, but the majority 
of them are not above twenty, as a general rule. In 
making an application, they present themselves first to 
the stage manager. He takes note of their age, size, 
appearance and general contour of figure, and if he be 
favorably impressed sends them to the costumer. He, 
in his turn, hands them over to the women in his em- 
ploy. There they are compelled to strip and undergo 
a complete examination of their limbs and form, and 
on the physical examination depends their acceptance 
or rejection. 

In companies where the ballet girls are simply female 
supernumeraries and do nothing but march about while 
the danseuse and coryphees engage the attention of 
the audience, any extended amount of training is not 
necessary. Care is only taken to obtain girls of ordi- 
narily fair physique and teach them to march correctly 
with the music. But even this is no small task. 

These girls are naturally fitted for anything but this 
business, and it is ludicrous to observe the positions 
they assume and the gait they adopt. Impressed with 
the idea that they must act and walk differently from 
their usual custom, they twist their bodies and stalk 
about in a manner that is beyond description. These 
improvised ballets generally present an exhibition of 
stiffness and awkwardness at the first public appear- 
ance ; but that is not to be compared with the ungainly 
antics of a first rehearsal. In cases where greater 
pains are taken, and where the ballet girls go through 
many intricate evolutions, the rehearsals are continued 
daily, when possible, for a period of six or eight weeks, 
and some idea of the trials of a ballet master may be 
gathered from the contrast of the first rehearsal and 
the first performance. 

A gentleman of long experience in theatrical mat- 



CANDIDATES FOR SHORT CLOTHES. 



245 



ters says in a talk with an interviewer: "Well, I 
should think I ought to know something about ballet 
girls. Why, when I used to be at the Old Comique 
they were as plentiful as supers and used to appear as 
peasant girls in the regular drama. 

"The rehearsals would be frightfully confusing. to 
an outsider. During the last rehearsal, before a piece 
of this kind is put on, the stage looks like a perfect 
pandemonium. The chorus is being put through its 
final drill on 
one side, the 
actors are 
practising 
their en- 
trances, ex- 
its, and cues 
on the other ; 
behind, the 
scene painter drilling for the chorus. 

and his assistants are daubing away, and the trap man 
and gas man are both working away in their line." 
" What kind of girls were they for the most part? " 
" Oh, they came out of factories and all that ; they 
could make from $6 to $8 a week on the stage, a good 
deal better than they could do at their old business. 
We used to have such a lot of applicants then we could 
pick out a pretty good crowd. Some of them were 
very nice, respectable girls, but the associations ruined 
most of them. A good many of them were rather fly 
when they first came in, and besides being crooked 
would put on any amount of lug among their compan- 
ions outside. After playing in the ballet two or three 
weeks for $6 or $7 a week, they would go around and 
say that they were actresses, playing an engagement 
at the Opera House, but they didn't know exactly 




246 CANDIDATES FOR SHORT CLOTHES. 

how long they should stay there. I wouldn't be at all 
surprised if they talked about starring it in another 
season; that's what all these fly-by-nights at the 
theatres do now. Why, do you know I have had peo- 
ple come to me and ask what part Miss So-and-So was 
taking, and on looking into the matter I would find 
that she was a ballet girl." 

" Can't you tell me of some cases of girls who have 
a little. romance about their history? " 

" Well, possibly, but to one behind the scenes there 
is little enough of the romantic, I can tell you. I re- 
member another case of a girl, one of the prettiest and 
best behaved we had — quite a modest little thing, in 
fact. But she got picked up by a middle-aged rake, 
and went to the bad. I do not know her whole story, 
but I know she used to meet this fellow after the per- 
formance very often. After a time she stated in con- 
fidence to one of her companions that she was married 
to him, and I have no doubt that she thought she was. 
She left the theatre after a few weeks and went to live 
with him. But I guess it didn't last long, for I saw 
her several years afterwards in one of the lowest trav- 
elling companies I know of, as vile and broken-down a 
wreck as you ever saw. If there is any romance in the 
lives of these girls, this is generally the style of it." 

" Do these girls ever rise in the profession? " 

11 Oh, yes, some of our best actresses rise from the 
ranks. It would make a cat laugh, though, to see the 
first time they have a little speaking part in a regular 
drama. A girl can get along all right as long as her 
individuality is concealed in the ranks, but when she 
has to step to the front and say a few words, she 
waltzes up as though she was walking on eggs. She 
looks as if she would like to fall through the stage, 



CANDIDATES FOR SHORT CLOTHES. 247 

swallows and hesitates, and puts you in doubt as to 
whether you ought to laugh or pity her." 

Here is a writer who takes another view of the 
affair: " To the uninitiated male citizen the period of 
supreme interest in affairs behind the scenes is the 
period of a grand ballet or spectacular show, where a 
hundred or two girls, who have undergone an exami- 
nation of their faces, shoulders and limbs, and been 
accepted as presentable upon the stage, don tights and 
make their bow to the public. It is not always easy 
to secure the required number of girls who have the 
requisite qualifications for an appearance in tights. 
Girls w r ho have never been on are extremely bashful 
about making their first appearance. The majority of 
the girls who answer the call for i ladies for the bal- 
let ' are shop girls, girls w r ho take work to their 
homes, girls suddenly thrown out of employment, 
poor girls who have no other way of honestly earning 
a dollar. There are a few who have been in the bal- 
let a number of times before. They have come to look 
upon it very much as a business. They knit and sew 
and crochet and do fancy-work behind the scenes dur- 
ing the stage w r aits. Their pay is liberal compared 
with what they can earn even in ways that are consid- 
ered more respectable, and they have the novelty and 
excitement, which, of course, are something of an at- 
traction in themselves. Considerable judgment has to 
be exercised in the selection of those who aspire to the 
costume of a pair of tights and trunks or a gauze 
dress. It is a lamentable fact that all ladies are not 
plump and symmetrical, and for those lacking these 
charms there is no door to the ballet sta^e. Once ac- 
cepted as a constituent part of a pageant which is to 
disport itself before the foot-lights, the figurante has a 
wide field for conquest open to her. It's man's weak- 



248 



CANDIDATES FOR SHORT CLOTHES. 



ness to be forever * getting crone ' on the favorites of 
the foot-lights, to believe them all beautiful and luscious 
as they seem from the front of the house. And so it is 
that the watchman at the stage-door and call-boys divide 
between them many a dollar for carrying in billet-doux 
from the great army of mashed masculines. 'Another 
sucker dead gone,' mutters the call-boy as he pockets 
___ his liberal fee as mail-carrier. 

UH RIGS Perhaps the fair object of the 
masher's admiration ' won't 
have it,' but there are among 
her sisters those who, to a 
promisingly liberal and attrac- 
tive stranger, would not let the 
lack of an introduction stand in 
the way of their graciousness. 
< 'Sh,' they say to the call-boy. 
<'Sh! Don't say a word. Tell 
him we'll see him later. Look 
for us at the stage-door when 
our act is over.' " 

And now let us see how they 
do these things in France, 
where the cancan flourishes and 
the Jar din Mabille, with its 
high kickers, is the temple to- 
wards which pleasure-seeking pilgrims bend when they 
visit their Mecca — La Belle Paris. A visitor to the 
dancing green-room of the Grand Opera, there, will 
find that at night it is brilliantly lighted, and the ef- 
fect of the gas-jets is greatly increased by the numer- 
ous large mirrors which almost conceal the walls. In 
front of each of these mirrors stands a wooden post a 
little higher than one's waist, and before a dancing girl 
sets off, she raises one foot after the other until she 




THE 



SUCKER. 



CANDIDATES FOR SHORT CLOTHES. 249 

places it horizontally on one of these posts, where she 
keeps it for some time, then quitting this position and 
taking hold of the post with one hand she practices all 
her steps, and after having in this way " set herself 
off," she waters the floor with a handsome watering- 
pot, and before the large mirrors, which reach down to 
the mop-board, she goes through all the steps she is 
about to dance on the stage. The leading dancing 
girls commonly wear old pumps and small linen gaiters, 
very loose, in order to avoid soiling their stockings or 
stocking-net. When the call-boy gives his first notice, 
they hasten to throw off their gaiters and put on new 
pumps, chosen for their softness and suppleness, 
whose seams they have carefully stitched beforehand. 
The call-boy appears at the door, " Mesdemoiselles, 
now's your time ! the curtain is up ! " and the flock of 
dancing girls hasten to the stage. Among the Parisian 
ballet corps one sees the strangest vicissitudes of for- 
tune, the most wonderful ups and downs of life. 
Some, who yesterday were glad to receive the meanest 
charity of their comrades, who joyfully accepted old 
dancing pumps, and wore them for shoes, and faded 
bonnets and thrice-mended clothes, appear to-day in 
lace, silks, cashmeres, with coachman, valet, carriage 
and pair. The sufferings, the privations, the fatigue, 
and the courage of these poor girls ere the miserable 
worm, the chrysalis, is metamorphosed into the brilliant 
butterfly, cannot be conceived. Bread and water sup- 
port the life of more than half of them ; many "would 
be glad to feel sure of it regularly twice a day. A 
great number who live three or four miles from the 
Grand Opera trudge that distance almost shoeless to 
their morning dancing lesson, rehearsals, and evening 
performances, and on their return home, long after 
midnight, in the summer's rains and the winter's 



250 CANDIDATES FOR SHORT CLOTHES. 

snows, nothing buoys them up but the fond hope, 
often delusive, that the future has a brighter and bet- 
ter time in store for them. 

The Nautch dancers, mentioned in the preceding 
chapter, are consecrated to the temple from childhood, 
and the graceful and fascinating poses to which the 
people of this country have been introduced by an en- 
terprising American, are portions of their sacred dances 
before the shrines of their dizzy deities. I think four 
of these girls came to this country originally, and all 
but one died. Still, there were forty so-called Nautch 
dancers put upon the variety stage and in specialty 
troupes, ordinary but clever American ballet girls 
being painted for the occasion, and dressed in a semi- 
oriental costume. They made no pretensions to do 
the Nautch dance, in which the swaying of the body, 
keeping time with the feet, and howling a lugubrious 
hymn are the features, there being no hopping or 
whirling around ; but the fraudulent Nautch girls of 
the specialty troupes pirouetted and pranced in the 
steps of the old-time ballet, with which we all ought to 
be familiar if we are not. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



TRAINING BALLET DANCERS. 



"Well, now, I don't think that's so awful hard," 
said a fellow knight of the pencil, one evening as we 
both leaned upon the rear row of chairs in the old 
Theatre Comique at St. Louis, since destroyed by fire, 
and bent our heads forward in an inquisitive look at 
the ballet of " The Fairy Fountain," or something of 
that sort. The remark was meant to apply to the 
evolutions of the premiere as she spun around on one 
toe and threw a graceful limb up towards the roof of 
the house every time she gave a whirl. 

"If you don't," said I, "you just try it once, and 
you'll find out exactly how hard it is." 

I had made this retort wildly and without knowing, 
myself, anything much about the difficulties of ballet 
dancing. It dawned on me that here was an excellent 
field for inquiry, so having obtained the permission of 
Manager W. C. Mitchell, who was running the 
Comique, to go behind the scenes to interview the bal- 
let master ; next evening found me early at the stage 
door. I was soon inside picking my way through the 
labyrinth of scenery, stage properties, scene shifters, 
supers, actors and people generally who crowd and 
jostle each other in this mimic world, and I was in im- 
minent danger every now and then of an impromptu 
debut before the public, and of finding myself stand- 
ing figuratively on my head before an unappreciative 
audience. At last the ballet master — Sig. J. F. Car- 

(251) 



252 TRAINING- BALLET DANCERS. 

della, a thin, wiry man who seemed to be in the decline 
of life — was found in his tights, leaning in an easy 
attitude against one of the " wings." 

"Bona sera, Signor," I said in the best Italian I 
could muster. 

"Grazia," returned the maitre in the most welcom- 
ing manner in the world, as he invited me to a quiet 
corner where we sat down on a cracker-box. 

The object of the visit was briefly explained, and 
Sig. Cardella rattled off his answers in a ready and 
intelligible manner, the sweet Italian accents falling 
from his tongue with the same rapidity and precision 
that he twinkled his feet in the ballet when occasion 
required . He said he had made his first appearance in 
the ballet twenty years before, when he was twenty 
years of age. He had been put in training, like other 
children, at the age of twelve years, in the Theatre La 
Scala — the government school — which has given 
the world so many famous dancers. Here he remained 
eight years. 

" Children," said Cardella, " are admitted to this 
school as early as ten years and as late as twelve, 
and there is a regular routine of study that cannot be 
finished in less than eight years. It is long and ardu- 
ous, and especially difficult when it is understood that 
pupils in this country arrive at stage honors in an im- 
mensely less time, in fact in as many months as we are 
required to put in years of study in the old country." 

' < I suppose La Scala is under the tuition of the 
very best masters," said I. 

" Oh yes, indeed," responded the maitre de ballet, 
assuringly ; "my first teacher was the celebrated 
Blozis, and after him Ousse, both French, and both 
great masters." 

"But old?" 



TRAINING BALLET DANCERS 



253 



" Yes, old ; but they had their stage triumphs, and 
the recollection of these kept their limbs strong and 




WINE IN THE GREEN-ROOM. 



their joints almost as supple as they had been in their 
younger years, when they themselves went forth from 



254 TRAINING BALLET DANCERS. 

La Scala as premieres, to win the applause of the 
public." 

" Boys and girls are admitted to La Scala? " 
" Boys and girls ; but all must pass a physical 
examination just as applicants for army service are 
required to do. If they are fortunate in having been 
endowed by nature with health and symmetry of form 
they are received into the school and enter at once 
upon its rigorous course of training. Oh, I tell you a 
ballet school is not the same here as it is in the old 
country. There must be perfect silence ; not a word 
from the moment the master appears before the line 
of pupils, and after that nothing but the motions of 
the hundred or more bodies and the beating of the 
master's stick upon the floor." 

" How long must they practice each day? " 
" Well, before they are supposed to enter the 
academy at all, they must have had one or two years' 
practice outside. In the academy they have four 
hours' practice under the direction of the master 
every day ; but many of them do more work than this, 
especially the most ambitious. I used to practice from 
eight to twelve hours daily, and even after having left 
the academy I kept up my daily exercise for increas- 
ing the limberness of the joints and the toughness of 
the cartilages. The more practice, the nearer per- 
fection." 

"I suppose the pupils are divided into classes, are 
they not?" 

" Yes ; we have four lines of dancers in Italy. You 
have only three here. We place our coryphees farth- 
erest off from the premiere ; you put them alongside. 
The beginners at La Scala go into the coryphee class, 
from which they are gradually advanced to the 
secunda Una, then to the i^rima Una, and, after- 



250 TRAINING BALLET DANCERS. 

wards, to solo parts, when they practically become 
premieres." 

" But eight years," I suggested, •« is a long time to 
be working without any return in the shape of either 
money or glory? " 

" Ah, there you are mistaken," Cardella answered, 
pleased to find that newspaper men sometimes make 
mistakes. " The pupils at La Scala are paid some- 
thing from the time they enter the academy. They 
first, while mere coryphees, get thirty francs a month ; 
in the second line, sixty francs ; in the third, eighty ; 
and when advanced to solo parts, two hundred francs 
a month. At this they stop until they finish their 
schooling, when they take places in the principal 
theatres, make the usual tour of the provinces and 
of the continent, and finally settle down, if they have 
not become famous, to some solid competency, just as 
I have done myself." 

" So much for the dancing boys and girls of Italy ; 
but how about the ballet in this country? " 

" Oh, it is nothing like what Europe produces. 
You have no schools here except the theatres, and girls 
when they come to learn the ballet, as they have often 
came to me, ask : ' Do you think I can dance in a 
week or two? ' It is absurd the way they want to do. 
Why, in my country I practised for eight years before 
I would be allowed to appear publicly in the theatre, 
and had practised two years before that at home, and 
yet these American girls think they can become good 
dancers in a week or two." 

" What do you say to such applicants?" 

" I say, i No, you can't dance in a week or two, 
nor in a month or two ; but if you want to practice for 
several months I can place you on the stage.' And I 
say this because I know American girls can make good 



TRAINING BALLET DANCERS. 



25? 



dancers if they are in earnest and apply themselves 
hard ; they can make passable ballet girls even if they 
give only a fair share of their attention to the study.' ' 
" What do you think of the American ballet?" 



^ 









' '5|i3r ^/ :: 




*0m. 




■"^■•. ■■;- l ' - r' 


4»^tjfei" 




MEASURING FOR THE COSTUME. 



" It cannot be good, of course, as long as the public 
does not give it the attention and patronage it requires 
to make it good. In the old country the ballet is 
everything ; in this it is comparatively nothing. They 



258 TRAINING BALLET DANCERS. 

make it subservient to everything else on the stage. 
Managers do not care to pay for good troupes, and the 
troupes are consequently small and poor." 

" But is there not plenty of employment for good 
ballet dancers?" 

* 'Always. Each company has few that can be 
ranked as soloists, and this is because good dancers are 
not numerous. As I have suggested before, the 
American girl is not sufficiently ambitious in this line ; 
their stage yearnings are mostly for speaking parts on 
the dramatic stage, and they are not very devout wor- 
shippers at the shrine of Terpsichore." 
" How are American ballet girls paid? " 
" Pretty well ; but nothing like what they got before 
the war. Madame Gallati, who was my wife, before 
the rebellion, never got less than $150 a week, and 
after the war was paid $100. Premieres now do not 
get more than $75, and they are in very good luck 
when they get that much. . The coryphees and others 
get from $35 a week down as low as $15. And out of 
this they must furnish their own wardrobes. They 
must lay out from $5 a week upwards for their stage 
clothes, and when a ballet is on that requires rich 
dressing the wardrobes may exceed their whole week's 
salary; but then, you know, they can prepare for an 
emergency of this kind by laying by a portion of the 
salary of the weeks in which no new ballet is brought 
out. Some of the ballets run for a month, but the 
usual run is two weeks." 

" The maitre does not always dance? " 
" No, he dances very seldom ; but he earns his 
money though. He is kept busy two or three hours 
every day, Sunday included, teaching the old and 
young ideas of the ballet, how to shoot out their 
limbs, pose, pirouette, etc. It requires all the time 



TRAINING BALLET DANCERS. 259 

I can give to it to prepare a new ballet. Just as soon 
as a new one is put on the stage I begin to train the 
girls in another one, and this training is kept up until 
the day before the novelty is to be presented to the 
public. Duriug this time of preparation I have the 
entire troupe on the stage two hours every morning, 
except matinee days, when, of course, there is no re- 
hearsal. I show them the steps and they have to 
practice them. They are supposed to practice some at 
home, but, of course, the majority of them never do 
so." 

" Have you many applicants now-a-days? " 

"Not very many. Once in a while a girl or two 
will apply, but nearly all of them are unworthy in 
point of physique to be received, and so are sent away. 
I do not care so much for nice features, for the ugliest 
can be embellished sufficiently to look handsome be- 
fore the foot-lights but good forms are indispensable, 
and particularly strong, symmetrical limbs. The ap- 
plicants come from all grades and classes of life, and 
not a few are young girls of good but obscure connec- 
tion, who have ambition to win glory and money and 
all that sort of thing from the public, and who fondly 
imagine that the ballet girl lives a butterfly existence, 
instead of being the hardworking, temptation-beset 
creature that she really is." 

"And they all want to get on the stage in a very 
short time? " 

" Yes, the invariable question is, ' Can I dance in a 
few weeks?' and then they want me to show them the 
8 steps ' and to let them try to duplicate them. I tell 
them there is no use ; if they want to dance they must, 
as the Irishman says, begin at the beginning. You 
can't know music without learning the notes ; you 
can't read without knowing the ABC; and so with 




(260) 



WAITING TO GO OX. 



TRAINING BALLET DANCERS. 261 

the ballet, you can't dance without first having acquired 
its alphabet." 

" How do you generally start a pupil out? " 

" They have got to go to what we call the 'sideboard' 
practice first ; that is, they must take hold of something 
for a rest, and go through the first five steps " — and 
here the maitre got up from the cracker-box, and taking 
hold of a " wing," placed his feet heel to heel, turned 
them out straight without bending the knees into an 
unsightly attitude, and said this was the first step ; the 
four others were much the same as the attitudes taken 
at different times by elocutionists, one foot being pushed 
forward and then another. " Then I show them how 
to do this," and he began twisting one leg after another 
backward and forward until I thought he would twist 
both off, but he didn't. "After that," continued Sig. 
Cardella, " which in this country takes about a month, 
but in La Scala takes six months, I begin to show 
them a step or two at a time, and gradually lead them 
up until they know a little." 

" But now and then we see a very fresh and green 
foot, if I may use the expression, on the stage." 

" Oh, of course ; we've got to make up a fair num- 
ber for a troupe sometimes, and I then allow a girl to 
go on, whom I think smart enough not to make a fool 
of herself. You see although the American girl as 
smart and sharp, and pretty original in many other 
things, she is entirely imitative in dancing. She 
watches the other girls, and although she may not even 
be fairly grounded in the fundamental principles of 
ballet dancing, she frequently faces an audience and 
does well — sometimes astonishingly well in fact. Some 
of these girls climb up out of the ranks very fast ; others 
who are lazy and give too much time to flirting and 
drinking wine, remain in the same line, usually the last, 



262 



TRAINING BALLET DANCERS. 



for 3'ears, and are really in a ballet master's way all the 
time." 

" How are ballet girls as a class? " 

" Some of them," said Cardella, with a shake of his 
head and an expression of pity on his face, " are a little 
fond and foolish at times." 

"And they have their admirers who bother them, in 
and ont of the theatre, and send them pretty presents, 
big boquets and such ? ' ' 




A PREMIERE BEFORE THE AUDIENCE. 

" Oh well, now, I know very little about that. Some 
of them have families to support, and manage to wear 
better clothes and more jewelry than their salaries 
could pay for. I could tell you lots of funny incidents 
about ballet girls, billet-doux and Billy boys, but you 
see that nigger act is 'nearly through, and I've got to 
go and look after my girls." And with an "Adio, 
ftiqnor!" and a wave of his hand, he withdrew, 



TRAINING BALLET DANCERS. 263 

I went up to the Alcazar on Monday night to see 
Bonfanti dance. I have a great respect for Bonfanti. 
She is a woman of character. When she first danced 
here the town was wild about her, and one young man, 
the son of rich and proud parents, offered her his 
hand in marriage. She hesitated for awhile, but he 
argued that because he was rich and his parents proud 
was no reason that he should be made unhappy by her 
refusal to marry him. She thought it over and came 
to the conclusion that he was right. So Mile. Bon- 
fanti became Mrs. Hoffman forthwith. The hue and 
cry raised by the Hoffmans was so violent that the 
young man could not stand it, and took his wife to 
Europe. His family allowed him little or no money, 
and he, having been very unpractically educated, could 
find no means of support. He was delicate and he fell 
ill and died. Then Bonfanti, or Mrs. Hoffman, came 
to New York to claim her rights as the wife of the 
son and heir of the Hoffmans, but they behaved in 
a way that wounded her pride — for ballet dancers as 
well as Hoffmans have pride — and she declined to 
accept any aid from them whatever. "As long as I 
have my feet to dance with," she said, " I can take 
care of myself, and I want none of their money." So 
she went back to the ballet, and has been dancing ever 
since. I couldn't help thinking as I looked at her the 
other night, that scions of proud New York families 
had often made worse matches. She has a good and 
still handsome face, and she dances as gracefully as 
ever. She is modest even when pointing at the foot- 
lights with one toe and at the chandelier with the other. 
Bonfanti is not one of the grinning dancers. Her face 
wears a rather sad expression, and she only smiles in 
acknowledgment of the applause of the audience. 
The competition with Lepri makes her do her best, 
and it is a regular dancing match every night. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS. 



At seven o'clock one morning during the season of 
1881-2 a tall, gawky, angular-looking young man in a 
suit of smutty and wrinkled gray, under a battered 
slouch hat with a bandit curl to its wide brim, stood at 
the door of one of the rooms of the Southern Hotel in 
St. Louis. He had a big bundle under his arm, and 
seemed tired, as indeed he w T as, for he had climbed four 
pairs of stairs and walked the lower hall-ways from one 
end to the other looking for the room which he had now 
found. He knocked kindly at first, but got no answer ; 
knocked again with the same result, and again and 
again. The fifth time somebody said " Come in," 
and the young man twisted the knob and in a moment 
was standing at the bedside of the late Oscar G. Ber- 
nard, business manager of the Couldock-Ellsler Hazel 
Kirke Company. Bernard was still in bed and very 
sleepy. 

" I've got a play I want to read to you," said the 
voung man, shifting the bundle he had under his arm 
down into his hands, where Mr. Bernard could see it. 

"A what? " the manager exclaimed, rising hurriedly 
upon his elbow and looking out through drowsy eye- 
lids at a pile of foolscap manuscript big enough to fill 
a French Cyclopedia. 

"A play," was the visitor's answer, In a quiet, un- 
al armed tone. 

(264) 



PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS. 2tiO 

" Is that it? " Bernard asked, as he eyed the pack- 
age of manuscript with astonishment. 

" Yes, sir ; there are only 439 pages." 

" Oh, is that all? How many characters, scenes, 
and acts, and how long do you think it would take to 
play it? " asked the manager, trying to be as sarcastic 
as possible. 

" There are forty-seven characters in the dramatis 
personal" the playwright answered, nothing daunted, 
" nine acts, and it might take three hours or more to 
play it through." 

" How many people get killed in it? " 

" Only thirteen." 

" Oh, pshaw ! " said the manager ; " go and kill off 
thirty more of 'em and then you will have a play worth 
talking about. You've got to kill somebody off every 
five minutes to make it stick. You needn't leave any 
more of them alive than just enough to group into a 
happy tableau at the end of the last act." 

" I don't think I can do it," said the playwright. 

" Oh, yes, you can," the manager insisted. " Just 
try it once ; and here, take this pass and go and see 
* Hazel Kirke ' to-night. It plays only until eleven 
o'clock, and we don't think it quite long enough. If 
you could tone your play down so that we might use 
it for a kind of prologue or something of that sort it 
would be better." 

The young man took the pass and departed. He 
was the queerest dramatist the country and century have 
produced, except possibly A. C. Gunter. He was fully 
six feet high, large and sharp-featured, with a light 
like lunacy dazzling in his black eyes and across his 
sallow face. His hands were large and his feet big, and 
as he ambled along the hotel hall he looked like an 
over-grown plowboy who had suddenly and mysteri- 



266 PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS. 

ously turned book-peddler. Besides all this he seemed 
very hungry. 

Early the next morning he was at Bernard's bed-side 
again . He had seen * ' Hazel Kirke,' ' and thought over 
the manager's advice, but had not made the changes 
suggest el because he was of the opinion now more 
than ever that the play would suit Mr. Bernard. 
Would the manager allow him to read it out to him ? 
Its title was " Love and the Grave." The manager 
said he might leave the manuscript to be looked over 
during the day, but the dramatist said he preferred to 
read it so that none of the good points would be lost. 
Then the manager told him to call again. He called 
again early the next morning. The manager was still 
too busy and too sleepy to hear the play. The dram- 
atist said he hated to part from his manuscript ; he had 
been ^ve years writing the play, but he liked Mr. 
Bernard and would leave it with him for twenty-four 
hours. The manager suggested that there was a pos- 
sibility of the play being lost if the hotel were to take 
lire, but the young man answered that he had ascer- 
tained that the hotel was fire-proof, and he was willing 
to take the chances. He went away leaving the vol- 
uminous manuscript in the manager's possession. Of 
course Bernard didn't read it, but when the dramatist 
returned Friday morning he told him it was very good, 
and if the dramatist cared he could give him a letter 
to the manager of a Chinese theatre iu San Francisco, 
who would be glad to purchase and produce such a play. 
The dramatist hoisted his manuscript under his arm, 
said he was sorry the Madison Square people couldn't 
use it, and went out hungrier-looking and more awkward 
than ever. Bernard hoped that it was the last of him. 

But it was not. While Bernard was in John T. 
Kaymond's room the following afternoon a knock was 



PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS. 267 

heard at the door and in walked the dramatist. He 
did not recognize Mr. Bernard but told Kaymond in 
piteous tones that the man he (Raymond) had recom- 
mended him to would not allow him to read the play, 
and didn't want it. A light flashed upon Bernard. 
Eaymond laughed heartily. Bernard did not laugh. 
It was one of the comedian's practical jokes. He had 
sent the Illinois dramatist to the " Hazel Kirke " man- 
ager with positive instructions to insist upon reading 
the Chinese play to him. After the comedian had had 
his laugh, he pulled a nickel with a hole in it out of 
his pocket, and, turning to the playwright, said : — 

"Til tell you what I'll do. "I'll match you for 
the play. If I win I take the manuscript. If you win 
you take the nickel." 

The dramatist was disgusted. He said all he wanted 
was money enough to get back to Springfield, 111., 
where he edited a daily paper. If he had that he would 
be happy. Bernard and Raymond each gave him a 
$5 bill and sent him on his way rejoicing. 

The trials and tribulations of the gawky young dra- 
matist from the Sucker State is biit a slightly exagger- 
ated and caricaturish recital of the difficulties that have 
been lying in the path of American dramatists ever 
since we made anything like an attempt at a distinc- 
tively national dramatic literature. It has been all 
along, pretty much the same with the young American 
who wrote a play as it was with the seedy English 
authors of Sheridan's time. Fresh from his garret, 
and as hungry for fame and fortune as he was badly in 
need of a meal, the young man who had written a 
drama appeared in shabby-genteel attire at the door of 
the manager's office, and after introducing himself, 
handed over his manuscript, which was tossed into a 
cjrawer or box, while the poor author, trembling with 



2 68 PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS. 

agitation, was told to return in a week or month. You 
may be sure the days and nights were nervously passed 
until the appointed time rolled around. Then, bright 
and early, still hopeful and still hungry, the author 
was at the manager's door. - 

" Well, sir, what do you wish? " was the abrupt and 
startling greeting accorded the author. 

" I suppose you have read my play " — 

" What play?" 

The author names it and the manager sternly says : 
" No, sir, I haven't read it and know nothing about it. 
When did you leave it here? " 

"A month ago, sir." 

" Well I don't think it would do me any good to 
read it. I haven't either the time or the inclination. 
If you want it search in that box, and if you can't find 
your own you can take your choice of any of those in 
there." 

This was, of course, a crusher. The young author 
moved away with a bleeding heart, and his armful of 
manuscript, and the stage to which his hojDes and am- 
bition had been attracted probably never offered him 
an opportunity to have his play damned on a first 
night. American dramatists are to-day pretty much 
in the same plight in regard to American managers 
and the American stage. Very few of our dramatic 
authors have received proper recognition, and few who 
have toiled at writing and dramatizing for years have 
much fame or money to show for their work, Ameri- 
can managers have a rage for foreign works, and just 
now are pouring thousands of dollars into the pockets 
of English and French playwrights, whose work is by 
no means superior to that to be found in the home 
market. Some years ago that very successful play of 
" The Two Orphans " was purchased by an American 



PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS. 2G ( J 

from its French author for a mere song. Now, Sar- 
dou gets $10,000 for a play like " Odette," which has 
so far, I believe, failed to bring that amount back to 
Mr. French, the purchaser. Samuel Colville paid 
Messrs. Pettitt & Merritt, of London, an enormous 
sum for the melodrama of " The World," which, how- 
ever, made $75,000 for him. Messrs. Brooks & 
Dickson bought " Romany Rye," an untried play, 
from Sims, for America, paying him $10,000 cash; 
Colville paid a high price for " Taken from Life," 
and D'Oyley Carte planks down $12,000 to Mr. Sims 
for a drama, before a line of it is written, and sells the 
American right to Lester "Wallaek on the same terms. 

All the American actors, actresses and managers 
nowadays want foreign plays and are willing to 
pay exorbitant prices for everything that is offered. 
On the other hand it is the exception when an Ameri- 
can playwright does well, or indeed when his work is ac- 
cepted at all. Some few late successes this side of 
the water have set all the ambitious young men of play- 
writing proclivities to work. One day it will be an- 
nounced that John McCullough has bought a tragedy 
from a rising journalist, and next day all the journal- 
ists will be writing plays for him. So, too, with Ray- 
mond, and Mary Anderson, and a score of others. 
But, few writers among journalists succeed in dramatic 
work. Robert G. Morris, of the New York Telegram, 
is among the latest successes with his ''Old Shipmates," 
and probably one of the greatest is Bartley Campbell, 
who sprang into fame in a night, after plodding 
patiently and poorly paid for years. Fred. Marsden, 
who writes Lotta's plays, is also among the fortunate, 
having, according to report, during his career made 
something like $70,000. 

Bartley Campbell may be taken as an excellent ex- 



270 PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS. 

ample of the manner in which the American dramatist 
works, and the almost despairing circumstances attend- 
ing his long and weary chase of fortune. He is a man 
with a history. That history he made himself. From 
an office boy he has risen to a place of honor. Not 
that the position of office boy is dishonorable, but very 
few who begin life in that sphere ever attain as high a 
place as that now enjoyed by the greatest of our 
American dramatists. He was born at Pittsburg, 
Pennsylvania, some thirty-seven years ago, and as 
soon as he graduated from the lap of infancy he en- 
tered a lawyer's office with the view of studying for 
the bar. But the reading of law he soon discovered 
was not at all to his liking, and he was declared an un- 
promising student, being too poetic and sentimental. 
His next move was to the office of the Pittsburg 
Leader, where he himself says he received the munifi- 
cent salary of $5 a week for the hardest work he has 
ever done. Here is another illustration of the old 
saying, that when you have failed at everything else 
make up your mind to adopt the profession of actor or 
journalist. Young Campbell chose the latter. He 
preferred the stationary drudgery of a newspaper Bo- 
hemian's existence to the wandering chance-life of the 
equally hard worked, and, at that time, poorly paid 
actor. By diligence and close application to study he 
rose rapidly, and soon was entrusted with the responsi- 
ble position of dramatic critic. He must have been a 
good one. It is said that he was a faithful critic ; so 
faithful, indeed, as to warrant the chastisement of a 
bad actor, and endanger the publication of the paper 
with libel suits. He deserted the Leader and com- 
menced publishing the Mail, and it is here, while edit- 
ing this journal, that he first attempted play-writing. 
His early effort was the sensational drama called 



PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS. 271 

" Through the Fire," brought out in 1871 ; then fol- 
lowed the comedy, ''Peril," produced in 1872; the 
third was, "Fate," which was subsequently purchased 
by Miss Carlotta Leclerq, who played it with much 
success for several years; then followed, "Risks," 
now the property of John T. Raymond, and, in swift 
succession, the mill ground out "The Virginian," 
" On the Rhine," « Gran Uale," « The Big Bonanza," 
which, it will be remembered, was one of the successes 
of 1875. "A Heroine in Rags," "How Women 
Love" (later known as "The Heart of the Sierras," 
and still later as " The Vigilantes "), "Clio," " Fair- 
fax," " My Partner," and lastly, " The Galley Slave." 
It was the success of "My Partner" that brought 
about the turning-point' in Mr. Campbell's fortune. 
That he had suffered the severity of want, he 
confesses himself in a neat little Christmas story told 
by him to a newspaper correspondent, who met him at 
the door of Haverly's Theatre, New York, one night 
during the run of " The Galley Slave " in the metropo- 
lis. His tall figure, his slouch hat, rather dishevelled 
hair, twelve-cornered moustache, Prince Albert coat 
and disordered necktie looked just as they did when I 
first saw their owner some years ago, when his luck 
was aw r ay down. The statement of the night's re- 
ceipts was brought him while we stood there, and his 
share was a few dollars more than six hundred. 

" House not as good as last night," he said, " within 
a couple of dollars. Fact is, the business, although 
good, has not been better than it might be." 

" Why, Bartley, you don't quarrel about a couple 
of dollars, now you are in the height of success? 
What is }^our income from plays, anyway? " 

" I don't growl about a few dollars ; but now is the 
time — see ? When you can growl about them do it. 



272 fcLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS. 

Well, I'm getting on an average $1,500 a week now." 

" You'll soon be rich, Bartley." 

" Well, I am so accustomed to bad luck, perhaps I 
may meet some — see? " 

Bartley Campbell always says "see" in an inter- 
rogative way without much or any desire for an an- 
swer. In a rambling conversation about his varied 
career that followed, the drift of the talk got Christ- 
mas and poverty mixed, and Bartley told this story of 
his early struggles : "I had just gone to New Orleans 
with my wife, arriving there just when a newspaper 
had suspended, and twelve writers were, like myself, 
seeking journalistic work — only, unlike myself, they 
had acquaintances and friends ; I neither ; nor money, 
except five cents — see? The row was a hard one. 
After various ' shifts ' — one of which was starting the 
Southern Magazine, which was brought out — we 
found ourselves, just before Christmas time, with 
nothing of importance except a grocery bill — see? I 
wrote a poem about Eddystone Light, and sent it to 
the Nineteenth Century, then published in Charleston, 
S. C, by Felix de Fontaine & Co. It was the small 
beginning of which the present Nineteenth Century is 
the great result — see ? ' ' 

"Well, I marked on the MS. — price $15. Com- 
mercial poetry — see? We confidently expected that 
money before Christmas. Why, we took it as a mat- 
ter of course that the money must come. If it 
didn't — well, that was a view of things that we 
couldn't take for a moment — see? Well, the day 
before Christmas came, but that money did not. I 
visited the post-office again and again that day, but no 
letter. The situation was gloomy then, and in the 
evening I said to my wife, ' I guess I'll have to go to 
the grocery, anyway.' ' 1 wouldn't go, Bart,' she 



i>lav> WD PLAYWRI0HT8. 273 

said ; ' I am afraid he'll say something about the ac- 
count.' 'I can't help it — I am going, anyhow,' I 
answered, and grabbed the basket and rushed out, 
for fear that my wife's fears would deter me from 
going at all — see? He didn't say anything about the 
account, and I ordered sparingly. When he got the 
things all in the basket, he slipped in with them a 
bottle of nice liquor, and he said: " Now, Mr. Camp- 
bell, this is Christmas Eve.' I went home, and I 
drank some of the liquor, and when we went to bed 
things looked a little brighter. I got up in the morn- 
ing, and they were gloonn^ again — see? I started 
down to the post-office, my wife saying it was a fruit- 
less errand, and got there just before the Christmas 
rule of closing at 10 a. .31. shut down the delivery 
window. The clerk ran through every letter, and 
when he had got to the last one, and as I half turned 
to leave, he threw me down a letter which bore the 
date mark ' Charleston.' I opened it, and there was 
a check for $15. My legs couldn't carry me home 
fast enough. I got there, and my wife met me, her 
face all aglow. 'Well, Bart,' she said. 'Well,' I 
said, and I felt that she had heard the news — that 
some one had told her my check had come, for to me 
it was the biggest piece of news ever was, and that it 
was common talk was perfectly natural. ■ Bartley, I 
have got $10,' she cried. 'And I have got $15,' I 
yelled ; and she, not noticing it, went on, ' I sold the 
war book about women, that nobody would buy be- 
fore, to some people who wanted it. Now, don't be 
extravagant, Bartley, please. We had a bottle of 
champagne that day, and presently I got the position 
of official reporter of the Legislatureat $1(> a week; but 
Christmas time never comes that I do not wonder if I 

18 



274 PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS. 

will have as merry and happy a day as the one we 
celebrated in New Orleans just after the war." 

In view of what has been said about the almost mer- 
ciless treatment the American dramatist, as a general 
rule, receives from the American theatrical manager, 
it may be well to add here the statement made lately 
by Mr. William Seymour, stage manager of the Madi- 
son Square Theatre, New York. He exhibited to a 
visitor a drawerful of manuscripts, and said, although 
he had read and rejected one hundred and fifty plays 
within nine months, he still had almost as many more 
left. As a usual thing the plays offered were, he 
claimed, weak imitations of " Hazel Kirke " and kin- 
dred plays, or wretched translations from the German 
or French. One or two were very original attempts. 
Picking up a heavy manuscript bound with blue rib- 
bon, and looking very like a young girl's graduating 
essay or poem, Mr. Sejmiour said: Here is a play in 
seven acts, which opens in America at some large sea- 
port town, the author isn't particular where, and an 
embarkation scene ends the first act. In the second 
the ship has made its way in toward the Arctic regions 
and is wrecked by an iceberg. ■ The hero bravely cuts 
down a spar, lashes himself to it and jumps overboard. 
In the third act he is discovered upon an ice- 
berg beyond the Arctic circle, starving and almost 
dead, while in the distance a battle is in progress be- 
tween a pirate ship and Chinese junk. The China- 
men are destroyed, and in the fourth act the hero 
is rescued from the iceberg. A marine encounter 
between Chinamen and pirates in the Arctic Ocean is 
bad enough, but even this is outdone in the fifth act, 
where the hero is discovered upon a tropical island 
with his feet frostbitten. The remaining two acts are 
used to get him back to America, which is done in full 



PLAYS AND PLAYWRIGHTS. 275 

accordance with the rest of the play. I have many 
others just as bad. Here is one with fifty-two speak- 
ing characters, and here is another in four acts, which 
would require but twenty-nine minutes to play the 
whole thing through. But strange and curious as the 
plays are, I think that the letters I receive from the 
authors are still greater curiosities. Occasionally 
some of them are modest enough to admit the possi- 
bility of failure, but as a general thing they do not 
hesitate to dwell upon the beauties of their productions 
and the certainties of success. Moreover, they are al- 
ways ready to make terms and some of their offers 
are very amusing. Here is one that will serve as a 
sample : — 

" Dear Sir: The undersigned is the Author of a 
new three act Drama it is romantic, Dramatic and 
Scenic, and has a good plot. The Story is interesting. 
The dialogue is bright and Witty, the unities of the plot 
are preserved, and the Situations Are Picturesque and 
effective. I have had it nicely copied. 

"And wish to sell it to you if you wish to become 
the Proprietor of my play. 

" Terms, I will sell you My copyright and Manu- 
script, And Give you 100 Printed copies, for the use 
of actors, for $1000 dols. 

" The name of My Play is 

" Charles Ryan. 

" The scenes are in Italy, Time 1868. 

" Yours, Very Respectfully, etc., etc., etc., 



"Author. 

"P. S. — I inclose my card, I don't be at Home 
every day, but am at home nearly every evening bet. 
8 and 10 o'clock. 

" (I did not have my Play Printed yet.) " 



CHAPTER XIX. 



"mashers" and "mashing 



f i 



The masher is a remarkable creature. He hovers 
everywhere, from the market-place to the meeting- 
house and from the promenade to the theatre. He is 
many-phased and many-faced, and may come from the 
slums or be the son of a first-class preacher of the Gos- 
pel. The class has been termed gunaikophagists by 

some fellow reck- 
less alike of the 
feelings of philo- 
logists and of the 
jaws of the rising 
generation, who 
says it means wo- 
man-eaters, but 
may be less poly- 
syllabically styled 
corner loafers and 
miserable scoun- 
drels, who live on 
the curbs and in 
some instances 
hug the wall — have a pardonable affection, con- 
sidering that they part their hair in the mid- 
dle, for malacca, bamboo, and rubber sticks — 
and last, but not least, some indulge a pre- 
cocious vanity by planting eye-glasses across their 
noses. These are, par excellence, the cane-and-eye- 
(276) 




A BOWERY "MASHER. 



MASHEKS AND MASHING. 277 

glass friends, and they remind one of nothing else in 
the world than a sickly looking cross between a 
saw-buck and a half-resuscitated- dried herring. The 
masher's sole ambition, is to win hearts, which he hopes 
to do by staring ladies out of countenance, and which 
he often does in a most flagrant and audacious manner. 
There are young and old of this class, and they are of 
all grades, from the } r oung man who negotiates with 
you over a counter for a paper of pins or a dozen shoe- 
strings, up to his employer, and from that up the 
monetary scale to the man who wholesales the em- 
ployer the pins which the "mashing" salesman dis- 
poses of a nickle's worth at a time. Sandwiched 
between these at proper, or rather improper, intervals 
are the "What d'ye soy?" crowd, the "toughs" 
wearing high felt hats turned up with care before and 
behind, and, without exception, sporting the inevitable 
tight jeans breeches. Their influence extends only to 
a certain class — to the concert and variety dives — and 
it is unfortunate to the poor girls, outside of this class, 
who fall a prey to these ruthless " mashers." 

The theatre appears to possess loadstone qualities 
for the masher ; it is as attractive to them as the flame 
of the candle is for the moth or the flower for the bee. 
I have already in a preceding chapter said a great deal 
about the " mashing " that is done in the audience by 
both male and female exponents of the disreputable 
art. I shall now confine myself to the " mashers " in 
the profession and those who try to " mash " the pro- 
fession. Some young gentlemen with more money 
than brains imagine that actresses have nothing else 
to do but receive attentions from the opposite sex, and 
that there is no " wall of China" around the virtue of 
any woman on the stage. They therefore not only make 
bold to talk freely about actresses, but are valiant 



278 MASHERS AND MASHING. 

enough to try to ensnare them by letters abounding in 



=fev^\ 




HOW SHE WON HIM. 

hyperbole and odorescent of cologne-besprent idiocy. 



MASHERS AND MASHING. 279 

The variety actress is the ideal prize of this class, and 
they are in their greatest glory when within the frolic- 
some precincts of the wine-room. I have seen many a 
young man whose hair was parted in the middle crow 
lustily over the successful capture of a ballet girl, when 
he himself had been the capture. These girls know 
what their charms are worth and hold them at that 
price, when they see a victim well dressed and with 
an apparently healthy pocket-book. They, in expres- 
sive but slangy language, lay for him. They are not 
foolish enough to invite him to their side ; they allow 
him to make an apparent conquest which guarantees 
them all the greater gain. The young gentleman of 
whom I speak w T as lured in this way ; and as she sat 
with well-rounded limbs pulsating through silken tights 
and gracefully thrown upon an opposite chair, and he 
leant over her whispering soft words and looking 
fondly upon her painted face, while they clinked cham- 
pagne glasses, she with downcast eyes was playing 
innocence, but all the while congratulating herself upon 
the arch manner in which she had won him. 

Just as bad as the female " masher " on the stage 
is the female «' masher " who has no claims on the 
profession. The latter has studied her art perfectly, 
that it may assist her in throwing her net about the 
unsophisticated. Females of this class in the East 
make it their business to frequent the matiness, where 
with the assistance of the ushers, whom they remu- 
nerate handsomely for their co-operation, they gather a 
granger in, and within twelve hours or so send him 
home whining at his idiocy in not having resisted the 
temptation that left him penniless. The gay sirens 
who are in this business generally go in pairs. The 
usher locates them next to their victim, and once there 
they've got him for all the cash he took out of the 



MASHERS AND MASHING. 281 

family sock before leaving Jerusha and his eight little 
ones. 

The blonde beauties of the leg drama, or the fair 
burlesquers, as some people call them, are considered 
legitimate prey by the " mashing " fraternity. Indeed 
it is often a case of diamond cut diamond, for the bur- 
lesquers are themselves notoriously liberal in making 
acquaintances, and the majority of them will accept a 
midnight drive or a morning supper as readily as they 
do the friendship of the gentleman who tenders them. 
The bewildering array of limbs and shapely forms, the 
golden hair and apparently fresh and handsome faces 
set the young swells wild, and the rush for orchestra 
chairs down front where a quiet flirtation can be car- 
ried on shows the great extent of rivalry that exists 
among their number. Any number of scented notes 
on rose-tinted paper find their way through the stage- 
door into the hands of the giddy throng behind the 
scenes, and as they glance through it they laugh at 
the foolishness of the writer but agree to *' work him " 
to the full extent of his wealth. The comedian who 
knows that the girls have got " another sucker on a 
string" comes up and wants to see the last " letter 
from home." He gives the girls a funny bit of advice 
about retaining their innocence if they would be happy, 
but adds that if there is anything in the fellow, to 
" catch on " at once — which of course the girls have 
already made up their minds to do. 

A veteran in the business says : * 'Actresses have the 
most marked talents for wheedling the gilded 3 r outh 
out of money. Such < guys ' and ' gillies ' fancy that 
if they are known as the patrons and friends of stage 
stars all the world is staring at them and envying 
their conquests. Poor idiots, their entire conquest 
consists in that they make over their own common 



282 



MASHERS AND MASHING. 




FKOM ONE OF THE "MASHED. 

sense ! The silly ninny rejoicing in the showy and art- 
ful woman's favors counts himself a privileged mortal, 
but his chief privilege in regard to a cunning, schein- 



MASHERS AM) MASHING. 283 

ing stage siren is the privilege of paving her bills. Of 
the men with money she makes fools. When she 
scents a full pocket-book she runs it low. Her affec- 
tion, so far as she has any to bestow, is probably lav- 
ished on a big animal of a loafer from whom she gets 
no money, and who, perhaps, beats her and makes her 
support him. It is a paradox of feminine nature that 
the women who are unscrupulous and heartless in 
wheedling men of money seem so lavishly free in be- 
stowing favors and bounty on loaferish lovers, from 
whom they can make nothing. An actress is psychi- 
cally a study, always curious and unaccountable, how- 
ever talented.' 

Some comic opera choruses, particularly those of the 
limb-exhibiting kind, have attained to almost equal 
notoriety with the burlesquers in the " mashing" line. 
The fact of the matter' is that in the branches of the 
profession where women are emploj^ed, not for their 
artistic qualities, but on account of the plumpness of 
their limbs and the a^reeableness of their entire figure 
to the male eye, there is so much laxness and so much 
that is altoo-ether bad, that the ladies of the higher 
walks of the profession do not always escape, and the 
" masher," who is always going around seeking what 
fair females he may devour, frequently dares to ap- 
proach some of the best women in the profession. Here 
is a specimen of the work of one of this class ; it is a 
letter received by one of the best and handsomest little 
ladies the stage ever saw, and whose retirement from the 
boards was really a great loss to the dramatic art : — 

Exchange Hotel, ) 

Montgomery, Ala., , 187-. $* 

I know I am violating the cold conventionalities of 
life by addressing you, but if it angers you, the friendly 
fire which blazes before you will prove a suitable altar 



284 MASHERS AND MASHING. 

upon which you can sacrifice my homage. I never saw 
you before to-night, but to see you is to be dazed — 
glamoured with a glare. May I dare to hope that I 
shall ever stand abashed in your presence, waiting }^our 
sweet will to raise my eyes to your dear face in adora- 
tion? Tell me that I may follow you through all the 
world upon my bended knees, to find at last your 
favor, that I may live in hope upon the memory of 
your smile, and know that at the last 3^011 will be con- 
tent to let me kneel at your feet and find reward in 
that alone. Oh, dear heart, let me dream of }^ou until 
you awaken. Yours, devoted, 

F. H. M. 

Can anybody imagine a more glowing and positive 
piece of idiocy? This would-be " masher" should be 
taken out in the woods and brained with a five-syllable 
adjective that he would not be able to identify in the 
next world. Many actresses refuse to receive letters 
that are sent to them from strange admirers. Mary 
Anderson never sees such a letter, although bushels of 
them are sent to her. And she is only one of hun- 
dreds who adopt the policy of rejecting strange letters 
at sight. Frequently married ladies in the profession 
are made targets of by the letter-writing brigade of 
mashers, and more than one head has been artisti- 
cally mutilated as a return for the " masher's " imper- 
tinent pains. 

A New York correspendent writes as follows about 
a pretty little actress and singer, who while fulfilling 
an engagement at the Bijou Opera House, New York, 
last summer, broke the hearts of all the "swells" 
and " bloods " of the metropolis, and had the house 
filled nightly with rival admirers, among whom was 
the melancholy son of a Washington, D. C, judge: 
"Miss Lillian Russell is a beautv without a shadow 



MASHERS AND MASHING. 285 

of doubt. She is about twenty-six, I believe. It is 
by no means generally known that she is married, and 
that her husband is an honest, hard-working, and thor- 
ough orchestra leader, to whom she owes her present 
proficiency in vocal culture. He was very fond of her, 
and always believed in her success. No man could 
have worked more faithfully. Finally he found an 
opening for her on the variety stage as a serio-comic ■ — 
as the phrase goes — singer. She attracted attention 
at once, and he labored vigilantly until he found a 
legitimate opening in English comic opera. I believe 
it was 'The Snake Charmer.' She was very glad to 
get out of the variety rut so soon, and expressed de- 
light at the admiration she excited. Then came the 
club-men with their swell slang, gaudy carts and flow- 
ing money. Now she is suing her husband for divorce. 
Such is life. The husband, I hear, harassed by care, 
and perhaps something else, had become so nervous 
or inattentive that he lost his position in the orchestra, 
and so the shades of prosperity and adversity arc more 
clearly defined than ever. Miss Eussell seems to have 
been under the especial care of a theatrical goddess of 
sensationalism. Every thing has conspired to make 
her name familiar. Her escapade with one of the 
young men was inevitable. The only question was 
which one she would select. It happened to be 
Howard Osborne, the son of the wealthy banker. 
One night when it was time for the curtain to rise, and 
the audience was o'ettinsr into a white heat, the manager 
came forward displaying a decided desire to swear 
like a pirate, and announced that Miss Russell had 
suddenly and unwarrantedly run away. The next 
morning Mr. Osborne, Sr., wondered where in thun- 
der his son was. He received a letter later, and 
immediately fell into a howling rage. Shortly after- 



286 MASHERS AND MASHINGL 

wards Mr. Howard Osborne was heard of in Chicago, 
whence it was blandly stated Miss R. had gone to visit 
an aunt. The young man was sent spinning over the 
sea to Europe, and the steamer had just arrived when 
his fond parent had the exquisite pleasure of reading 
at breakfast a cable in the morning papers relating a 
little excursion of a certain Mr. Howard Osborne, Esq., 
said to be of New York, with Miss Alice Burville, the 
burlesque actress, at the Ascot races. Heigho ! 
1 Which the ways of the world is peculiar, Mrs. 'Arris, 
sezl.'" 

A Californian, who reached the Pacific slope in '49 
as a peddler, but is now a bachelor millionaire, has 
been sued for breach of promise by the walking lady 
of a San Francisco theatre, who seems to have effec- 
tually succeeded in "mashing" the old man. The 
defendant it is said first saw the plaintiff at a perform- 
ance at the theatre where she was engaged. He 
became impressed with her charms and sought an in- 
troduction. He gained it and became an assiduous 
attendant upon her. Their * intimacy, the lady 
alleges, ended in a promise of marriage, and she 
claims to possess letters in which she is addressed by 
those endearing epithets good husbands apply to the 
spouses they love. However that may be, the defend- 
ant showered bounties on her, both in jewels and 
money, for upwards of a year. Then business called 
him to his mines in Amador County. He was to be 
away some weeks, but returned sooner than he had 
anticipated. He drove directly to the theatre where 
the plaintiff was performing at the time of his arrival 
in San Francisco, and got there just in time to see 
her walk away with another man. That other 
man, moreover, was an actor with whom rumor 
had associated her name more than once, though 



MASHERS AND MASHING 



287 



she had succeeding in 



suspicion in the 



mutter away from the mind of her senile lover. 
This time, however, argument failed to do the work 
required of it. Detectives employed by the defendant 
resulted in the discovery that his gifts and favors had 
only served to benefit a younger and more fascinating 
man, and he literally as well as metaphorically shook 
the dust of his false one's door-mat off his feet forever. 
Then followed the suit, which he calls blackmail, and 
she, a demand for justice. 




ADELINA PATTI'S " MASH 



Adelina Patti is credited with a strange fascination, 
while in New York, the diva having succumbed to the 
blandishments of a midget. The story is that she saw 
a picture of the midget Dudley Foster on exhibition 
at Bunnell's museum, and driving down Broadway, 
stopped at Bunnell's establishment and asked George 
Starr, the wily and polite manager, for the loan of the 
diminutive specimen of humanity. Starr agreed and 
the midget was handed into her carriage. " Here is a 



288 



MASHERS AND MASHING, 



pretty toy," gushed the prima donna, covering the 
little creature with kisses. She took him to her hotel 
and passed an entire afternoon singing to him and 
chatting. How Nicolini took to the new crank of his 
singing bird is not stated. Mr. Foster plumes himself 




AN ACTORS 



MASH. 



considerably on the fact that he has done what princes 
have tried in vain — cut out Nicolini — and he boasts, 
too, that the prima donna before she would let him go 
made him promise to call on her the following week. 

Actors have their "mashes" too, the same as ac- 
tresses, and the gentlemen who own flexible voices, and 



MASHERS AND MASHING. 289 

flourish them through all the glorious variations of 
operatic music, seem to be most successful in captivat- 
ing the fair and susceptible sex. " It is hard to under- 
stand why it is," says a Chicago newspaper, "but 
somehow, while girls recognize the powder and paint, 
the blonde wigs and penciled brows of a prima donna 
as so much make-up, they refuse to analyze the charms 
of a tenor, and his grease, paint, luxuriant locks, and 
graceful mustache are admired as his very own. A 
case in point was that of a young lady whose father is 
well known on the Chicago Stock Exchange. She was 
violently smitten with Campanini, and used to send 
him no end of beautifully written missives, and every 
night a bouquet of red roses. The letters especially 
attracted the attention of the tenor because they were 
written in smoothly flowing Italian, and evidently by 
some one who was more romantic than fast or wild. 
There was little trouble in finding out the fair corres- 
pondent, and Mine. Campanini, who has a good and 
lovely soul, sent a note to the young lady and asked 
her to call. It is needless to say the latter' s delight- 
ful delusions were quickly dispelled before the domes- 
tic life of the silver-toned tenor and the kindly advice 
of his good wife. 

The extent to which these serio-comic love affairs 
are carried on is enormous, and sometimes the parties 
show an amusing ingenuity in their correspondence. 
Del Puente once went nearly wild with ungratified 
curiosity through the pranks of a mischievous school 
girl, who was perpetually sending him love letters, in 
which she declared she never missed a single nisrht 
when he sung, and that when he left New York on his 
tour with Her Majesty's Company she should follow 
him and be present at every performance. Sure 
enough, in every city where he sang he received a 



290 MASHERS AND MASHING. 

pretty note of congratulation, with the usual informa- 
tion that the writer — dressed, as usual, in black — 
was present. Of course, there were always a number 
of young and pretty women in this sombre hue, but 
which was his correspondent Del Puente never could 
decide. The letters were always post-marked with the 
name of the city he happened to be in, and finally he 
became really nervous with the idea of an unknown 
woman following him in this shadowy fashion. His 
curiosity was not destined to be satisfied until long 
afterward, when he found that the fair unknown, clev- 
erly following the published route, would send a 
stamped but undirected letter to the postmaster of the 
city he happened to be in, with a request that he would 
ascertain the singer's address and forward it. As long 
as the letter was stamped this was sure to be done, and 
the tenor never failed to receive the missive. 

A case of "basso-infatuation was that of a daughter 
of an ex-Senator, still prominent in Washington cir- 
cles, who used to spend all her pin-money in buying 
presents and baskets of flowers, which she sent to 
Conley. In some mysterious way her father received 
a hint of it, and the young lady was sent to the 
Georgetown convent, where she was educated for a 
couple of years byway of punishment. She probably 
did not know that Conley was married. Poor fellow, 
he was drowned last summer. 

Castle, though neither so young nor so charming as 
he once was, still receives loads of gushing epistles, 
which Mrs. Castle demurely twists into cigar lighters : 
and Brignoli says, "I haf teached misself ze Inglis 
language with these liddle letters." 

In Chicago there resides a wealthy and charming 
young married lady who entertains handsomely, and is 
well known in society, but who distracts her elderly 



MASHERS AND MASHING. 291 

husband by a mania for making the acquaintance of 
every new male singer of note, and entertaining him 
with the greatest elegance and expense. Of course a 
majority of these affairs are entered into either in the 
spirit of romance or mischief, but in either case it is 
apt to result disastrously, and the world has a cruelly 
uncomfortably way of stamping them with another and 
harsher name. 

Having noticed that there was a stain on the lips of 
the portrait of Campanini the tenor, hanging in the 
lobby of the Academy of Music, New York, a visitor 
called an attendant's attention to it and advised him to 
wipe it off. "Why, bless you,'- said the attendant, " we 
do so every day. That's where the girls kiss it. That 
picture makes as many mashes as Campy himself, and 
if he was kissed half as often his lips would be quite 
worn away. Lord what fools women are, to be sure ! ' ' 
The visitor waited long enough to see a well-dressed 
and handsome young lady approach and kiss the pic- 
ture. At least he says he saw it. 

There is also a humorous side to this "mashing" 
business. Men and boys who run after actresses gen- 
erally get themselves into trouble, particularly is this 
the case with old men — men old enough to be think- 
ing of the designs for their tombstones instead of 
running around variety theatres hugging girls and lav- 
ishing champagne and beer upon them. An old sinner 
of this stamp got into trouble in a New York theatre 
one day. He made himself conspicuous and obnoxious 
at a rehearsal by stumbling over the stage and getting 
in everybody's way. The supes cursed him and the 
stage carpenter called down anathemas on his aged 
head, but the old fellow was indifferent, for he was 
basking in the smiles of a well-known soubrette and 
was happy. Finally he posed in the centre of the stage 



202 



MASHERS AND MASHING. 



just as an " interior " was to be set. The scene shifters 
saw he was in a good position to be squeezed, and they 
quietly shoved the scenes together. The lover, intent 




A MONKEY SPOILING A "MASH. 



on his inamorata, discovered his predicament only when 
caught, but the scene shifters were deaf to his cries, 
and he was held a prisoner. He was only released on 






MASHERS AND MASHING. 293 

swearing never again to poke his nose inside the stage- 
door, and furnishing enough to treat the boys. When 
at last he was free, he made hasty tracks for the exit, 
and was heard to mutter as he went out, he'd be d — d 
if he wanted to be squeezed again, even by his charm- 
ing soubrette. 

The bald-headed men, though, get it worse than any- 
body else, and particularly so w T hen their bald heads 
are hidden under wigs. A monkey had a part to play 
in a piece running at one of the metropolitan variety 
theatres. There was a pretty burlesque actress play- 
ing there at the same time and she had a host of admir- 
ers with more money than brains. Among the num- 
ber was an addle-pated old rascal, who preferred the 
society of the " artiste " to that of his aged wife, who 
had lost the charms which enraptured his fancy when 
he led her years ago as a blushing bride to the altar. 
One evening the fellow bribed the door-keeper at the 
stage entrance to admit him to that realm of dirt, paint, 
and faded tinsel " behind the scenes," and he stationed 
himself in the wings in order to welcome his charmer 
when she retired amid the plaudits of the audience. 
But alas, the " best laid plans of mice and men gang 
aft aglee." The monkey espied him, and at once fell 
in love with the glossy wig which covered the bald 
head. Swinging itself down from the flies the monkey 
made a swoop with its long arm and the masher was 
scalped. He cried lustily, but the monkey made off 
with its trophy and the masher sloped with a hand- 
kerchief tied over his head. 

Almost similar was the fate of a bewigored Parisian 
who was loafing and " mashing " behind the scenes of 
the Grand Opera. A dancer stood in the wings listen- 
ing to the prattle of a silly old man. He was protest- 
ing heartily his love for. the young lady, and was on 



294 MASHERS AND MASHING. 

the point of kissing her hand, when, as he stooped 
down, she snatched his wig from his head. At that 
moment she had to appear on the stage, and did so 
amid laughter and applause ; for she carried with her 
the old fellow's scalp as if by way of trophy. The 
applause was less loud, but much more humorous on 
the stage ; for the gay old lover and his bald head had 
to stand a deal of quizzing from those who, like him- 
self, were in the wings waiting for their * ' little dears ' ' 
to return. 

Since the establishment of garden theatres for the 
summer months, in nearly all the large cities of the 
Union, the " masher " finds ample field for the kind of 
sport he indulges in . A girl in red tights created a great 
commotion among the swell mashers who frequented 
Uhrig's Cave, St. Louis, during the summer of 1881, 
and in that connection there could have been revela- 
tions that would carry grief into a few homes and bring 
disgrace upon not young and irresponsible men, but 
upon prominent citizens who were foolish enough to be 
fascinated by the crimson symmetricals. The frater- 
nity have a peculiar way of working a summer garden. 
The phalanx of mashers begin operations early in the 
evening. They get to the garden before the lamps are 
lit, and dust some of the chairs with their coat-tails and 
pantaloons. They watch the singers as they enter and 
endeavor to catch some suggestion from them that a 
mash has been effected. Now and then a soft, gazelle- 
like glance or a sweet, girlish simper, like the smile on 
a sick monkey's under lip, gives a token of slight 
recognition, and then the masher's heart and eye are 
full of gladness. When the curtain is rung up and the 
glare turned on, the "mashers" move in a body 
towards the front of the stage and dust some more of 
the chairs. Then they fix their eyes like so many 



MASHERS AND MASHING. 



295 



lances upon the girls and again attempt to impale 
hearts. After the performance they move in a double 
line to the side aisle of the garden, and, opening 
ranks, wait for the actresses to come out. When 
the actresses do come out they are 
obliged to run a gauntlet that would 
put any but a cast - iron woman 
with a heavy veil on to the reddest 
blush. Sometimes a "masher" 
accomplishes his aim in life and cap- 
tures a girl, but it is seldom. The 
professional poser has too wide a 
reputation and his figure is as clear 
a "give-away" as the cigar-sign 
Indian's, so that a reputable young 
lady who cares anything about con- 
tinuing' to be respected and esteem- 
ed by her friends is obdurate to 
the glances, the moustache, the 
smiles, the white hat, light pant- 
aloons, bamboo canes, and cheap 
button-hole bouquets — 




AMBLELEG. 

See p. 296. 



The Saturday matinee young man, 

The flve-cent-cigar young man, 

The sweetly susceptible, somewhat disrep'table, 

Gaze-and-admire-me young man. 

And so it goes on every night. Music and " mash- 
ing" so charmingly dovetail themselves to the enter- 
tainment that there is as much amusement in looking 
up one as in listening to the other. 



CHAPTEK XX. 



THE MAIDEN AND THE TENOR. 

Mr. Troubadour Ambleles; was a tenor. He waved 
his light voice for a light salary in the chorus of an 
uuexpensive opera company that made the summer 
months of 1881 and the opera air of the West End of 
St. Louis melodious to a sometimes quite harassing 
degree. His soul was as full of art as his throat was 
of music. He doted upon the beautiful wherever he 
came in contact with it, and frequently, when he heard 
of beauty lying around in languid looseness in any 
direction, he went out of his way to find it. It was in 
this manner he became acquainted with Miss Silica 
Justaytine. She was the belle of an upperly upper 
circle, a glowing, brown-eyed maiden, with sun-kissed 
hair, and the sweetest smiles that ever played in Polar- 
light style over the ruffs and ruchings of an expensive 
toilet. Indeed, an aurora borealis of glinting good 
nature shone upon the horizon of her lips, and a 
single glance of her eye was worth more to a man in 
love than the advent of a sprinkling cart to a traveller 
perishing of thirst on a dry and burning desert. 
When Mr. Ambleleg saw Miss Justaytine, that pink of 
beauty and perfection of belleship, gracing a front 
bench, where the susceptible tenor was nightly airing 
his voice at a salary of ten dollars a week, their eyes 
met and their loves at once intertwined. Like Tecetl, 
the daughter of Montezuma, who found in the yellow- 
haired warrior, Alvarado, the lover she had dreamt of 

(296) 



THE MAIDEN AND THE TENOR. 297 

long before the prow of the " fair god's" vessel 
touched the shores of Mexico, the super-gesthetical 
maiden of my story saw in the chorus singer the 
affinity for which she had long looked and sighed. 
Mr. Ambleleg, too, at once became aware that in Miss 
Justaytine he had met his fate. They smiled, and 
sighed, and ogled, and encouraged each other across 
the foot-lights. The chorus singer forgot all the other 
maiden beauty that flourished under the foliage, and 
there were crushed and trampled hearts lying in the 
chasm across which Ambleleg and Miss Justaytine ex- 
changed their affections. But Ambleleg did not mind 
it. He had learned that Miss Justaytine was the queen 
of her circle, and he determined to share her crown 
with her. Now, Ambleleg was not wealthy ; neither 
was he rich in prepossessing features. His teeth were 
freckled, his mouth was big, his forehead small, his 
eyes expressionless, his hair of a buttery yellow, his 
moustache vapid, his shirt calico, and usually required 
to do long service without washing, while his general 
appearance was not extravagantly pleasant, and cer- 
tainly not over-abundant in that grace and ease for 
which pretty girls have, at all times, a fondness. 
Therefore, it was surprising that Miss Silica Justaytine 
fell in love with the chorus-singing tenor. But she 
did so, and, it seems, fell so deeply into admiration of 
himself and his voice, that she could not have done 
better had she made the start, in falling, from the top 
of a seven-story house. When love is once kindled in 
the glow of a pair of admiring eyes, look out for a 
conflagration in the neighborhood of the pericardium. 
Night after night, as the moon washed the tree tops 
with waves of silver, and the leaves rustled their whis- 
pers to each other, Miss Silica Justaytine sat in the 
front row, either joining with the chorus of aesthetic 



298 THE MAIDEN AND THE TENOR. 

maidens in " Patience " in singing to her own ideal 
Bunthorne, — 

Turn, oh turn in this direction, 

Shed, oh shed a gentle smile ; 
With a glance of sad perfection 

My poor fainting heart beguile ! 
On such eyes as maidens cherish 

Let thy fond adorer gaze, 
Or incontinently perish 

In their all-consuming rays. 

Or following Bettina through the mazes of the 
<s Mascotte" gobble song, while she had a Pippo of 
her own in mind all the time. Ambleleg noticed this 
growing affection, and sang all the louder, and all the 
wilder, to the great endangerment of the performances. 
At last Miss Silica Justaytine left him a token of her 
love — a soft, white rose, which she kissed and placed 
in her chair as she departed one evening. Ambleleg 
cleared the stage at a bound, secured the creamy 
flower, pressed it to his lips and over his calico shirt 
bosom, after which he carefully stowed it away in a 
pocket-book with his wash and board-bi lis . The follow- 
ing day Miss Silica Justaytine was toying with a 
$10,000 necklace in the bay window of her palatial resi- 
dence on Pinafore Avenue, when the postman handed 
her a letter in a yellow envelope. It was from Amble- 
leg. She blushed as she looked at it, then opened and 
read it, smiled and floated gracefully up to an escritoire, 
where she indited a charming little note on pink mono- 
gram paper with heavy gold edges, and placed it in one 
of the nattiest and most scrumptious envelopes you ever 
saw. Ambleleg read that note that very night to a 
group of wide-eyed and open-mouthed chorus singers. 
It invited him to call on Miss Justaytine the next day. 
The call was made. Miss Silica Justaytine received 
Ambleleg at the front door, and led him to the magni- 
ficent parlor as graciously as if he were a prince. 



THE MAIDEN AND THE TENOR. 299 

" My Pippo!" she cried, as she flung her arms 
around his neck, and almost knocked over the piano 
stool. 

" My Bettina! " sighed the tenor, as he pressed her 
to his glowing bosom. 

After the first agony of meeting they sat down and 
told the stories of their love. Cruel fate had dealt 
harshly with both. One was already engaged to be 
married ; the other would not begin to have a ghost 
of a show at monogamy if wives were to be had at ten 
cents a dozen. Miss Justaytine was betrothed to Mr. 
Praymore, a young man who had hopes of coming into 
a fortune some day or other, providing he survived 
the parent who accumulated it. Mr. Ambleleg was 
impecunious ; still she said she could scrape up enough 
to buy him a suit of clothes and a box of tooth-powder, 
and then they might fly together as far as East St. 
Louis anyhow. Miss Justaytine was to become a wan- 
dering minstrel's bride. She took the $5,000 diamond 
engagement ring Mr. Praymore had given her, from 
her finger, and put on a $2 imitation amethyst that 
the chorus singer gave her. What simple, pure, and 
unselfish love. 

But the course of true love is as rough as the rocky 
roads in Dublin. Not content with wandering under 
his inamorata's window every night wasting his breath 
in whistling Sullivan's music to pieces, while Bettina 
opened the shutters of the third-story window and 
softly sang, — 

For I mi-hy turkey's love, 
to which Pippo melodiously responded, — 
And I my shee-eep love. 

After which there was a mixture of " gobble, gobble, 
gobble," and " ba-a-a-ahs." Not content with this 
innocent and artistic way of amusing himself while he 



300 THE MAIDEN AND THE TENOR. 

kept people awake for blocks around, Ambleleg very 
indiscreetly boasted of his success, and exhibited Miss 
Silica Justay tine's notes and photographs to indiscrim- 
inate crowds. One day he met Mr. Praymore and a 
prize-fighting brother of Miss Justaytine in the street. 
This brother had done yoeman's service in the 24- 
foot ring, and required but slight provocation to 
disturb the claret in a nose so inviting as that which 
decorated the middle of Mr. Ambleleg's face. By the 
free use of whiskey punches these young men finally 
inveigled Ambleleg into a deep and dark cellar where 
they proceeded to touch him up with fists and feet 
that he might not be able to identify himself again. 
After materially spoiling his appearance, they made 
themselves presents of the photographs and letters 
which they found in his possession, gave him a few 
parting touches, and then went away to prepare au 
official statement of their side of the case. Ambleleg 
now had no more use for the Justaytine mansion, or 
the Justaytine beauty, so he made up his mind to heal 
his heart and his bruises with a $10,000 balm. For 
this purpose he went into court. Miss Silica had 
winged herself away to the Eosebud Sulphur Springs, 
and was not aware of the fame herself and her chorus 
singer were achieving at home. Ambleleg hired him 
two lawyers to plead his cause, and then there was a 
great uproar all over the country. The papers busied 
themselves about the matter very much, and impu- 
dently published all the details that they could get 
hold of. Quite natural it was that when Miss Silica 
Justaytine arrived at the Rosebud Sulphur Springs, 
the fashionable and celebrated beauties there should 
be so jealous of her triumph over a chorus singer, that 
they were sparing of their attentions and cutting in 
their remarks. Some of the same envious ones had had 



THE MAIDEN AND THE TENOR. 301 

food for gossip a season or two before over Miss Silica 
Justaytine's capture of a $15,000,000 ex-Presidental 
candidate. That a woman should range all the way 
from a Presidential candidate to a chorus singer, was 
unusual and interesting. So unpleasant did the gos- 
siping souls at Rosebud Sulphur Springs make it for 
Miss Silica Justaytine, that she hastened back to the 
more congenial atmosphere of her home on Pinafore 
Avenue. In the meantime, her prize-fighting brother 
and Mr. Praymore had, with the same courage that 
impelled them to decoy Mr. Ambleleg into a cellar, 
and beat him, and draw a Gatling gun on him, fallen 
down on their knees before Miss Silica Justaytine and 
asked her to plead their cause. She consented, and by 
a swift-footed courier sent Ambleleg a message accom- 
panied by the talismanic words, "Pippo" and 
"Amethyst." He stopped smoking a five-cent cigar 
and rushed out to the Justaytine mansion like a fire- 
engine pursued by an insurance man. His lawyer 
seized his coat-tail and followed, the two arriving: 
there out of breath, the one bent on money, the other 
called by the sweet voice of love. 

"Oh, Pippo!" 

"Oh, Bettina!" 

This was the salutation that fell from the two lovers 
as their eyes melted into each other. 

"Pippo, you have sued my prize-fighting brother 
and my ostensible lover for $10,000. They are short 
of cash just now and cannot conveniently pay. Please 
cut down the amount just a little bit, dear Pippo. 
For the sake of this amethyst (shows him the- ring) I 
beg of you cut it down," said she. 

"I'll cut it down, Beitina" he said, " but I do it 
only for your sweet dear sake." 

"How much?" she asked. 



302 THE MAIDEN AND THE TENOR. 

"All I want," he answered, "is enough to buy a 
silver watch, a new suit of clothes, pay my board and 
wash bill, get me three cigars for ten cents, and take 
me home to my mother. I think I can get along with 
$500." 

" Is that all?" the charming and delighted creature 
inquired. 

" Not quite all," put in Ambleleg ; "the two law- 
yers I have hired cannot be assuaged with less than 
$500. We three — that is, the two lawyers and my- 
self — want $500 apiece. Thus you see I cut the 
$10,000 down $8,500," and he jammed his thumbs 
into the arm-holes of his vest and assumed the attitude 
of a man who could lose that amount in a game of 
poker every day in the week and never feel the loss. 

"Oh, Pippo, you are so good to reduce so liber- 
ally," said Miss Justaytine, and she threw her arms 
around his neck and kissed him in a wild and irre- 
sponsible way. 

Thus the interview ended, and as Ambleleg ambled 
down the front steps Miss Silica Justaytine sat down 
at her piano, ecstatically thrummed it and enthusiasti- 
cally sang : — 

A feather-headed young man, 

A goosey-goosey young man, 

An utterly looney, much too-sooney, 

Swallow-the-bait young man. 

The lawyers subsequently fixed the matter up among 
themselves, and Ambleleg, after getting a few dollars 
and a new pair of heavy-soled shoes, struck out nobly 
for the home of his mother. When last heard from 
he still had a good chorus voice and was helping to 
fill in the intervals of comic opera with his low and gen- 
tle howl. 



CHAPTER XXL 



FISHING FOR FREE PUFFS. 



The merchant who has anything to dispose of adver- 
tises it, and the most successful men in any line of 
business are those who are most liberal in the use 
of printers' ink. The theatrical fraternity thoroughly 
understand this, and their first and foremost idea in 
everything they do is to get themselves before the 
public, and, if possible, keep themselves there. Their 
appreciation of the value of a puff or notice is beauti- 
fully set forth in the following funny paragraph which 
I found floating around in the newspapers : — 

"A Leadville paper stated that a well-known actress 
who visited that city went to a saloon after a per- 
formance, played poker, got drunk, licked the bar- 
tender, and cleaned out the crowd. Of course she was 
very indignant and was going to cowhide the editor, 
when the amazed journalist explained to her that it 
was a first-class puff that would get her an opening in 
society in Leadville. And then she thanked him and 
gave him a dozen passes." 

Some actors, and some actresses, too, do not care 
a cent what the means employed are or what the 
printed matter is, so the names are their own and once 
more they are before the people. The great majority, 
however, while anxious to appear in print as often and 
in as many columns as a paper can spare without 
throwing out paying advertisements, are very scrupu- 
lous about the character of the statements credited to 

(303) 



FISHING FOR FREE PUFFS. 305 

them or actions spoken of, while all affect to be utterly 
independent of the press and to have no regard what- 
ever for the good it can do them, or the harm either. 
If they meant what they said they might be set down 
as foolish ; but they do not mean anything of the 
kind, and the fact that day after day the most out- 
rageous stories about professional people go uncon- 
tro verted, is an indication that not only are they 
willing to have such things published, but may have 
instigated them themselves. 

The only kind of newspaper notice a Thespian might 
not court, but which, once printed, would be looked 
upon philosophically as so much printers' ink obtained 
for nothing — so much advertising had that wasn't 
paid for — is such a one as the announcement of the 
attempt of a sheriff to lasso Miss Fanny Davenport, 
in order that he might be able to hold her long 
enough to read a writ of some sort to her. 

Different actors and actresses have different ways of 
advertising themselves. The interview is a favorite 
with some, and often the interview is so arranged that 
the player can appear before the newspaper man in 
some eccentric attitude that will attract more attention 
than all the player could say if he talked for one hun- 
dred years. Harry Sargent likes a reporter to see 
Modjeska, and as the visitor enters he finds the Polish 
actress firing across the room with a pistol at a small 
target, which she manages to hit every time. Dis- 
playing diamonds is another scheme to catch the un- 
wary newspaper man. Sending along photographs is 
expected to throw an editor into an ecstacy of liberal- 
ity out of which he will come with at least a half-col- 
umn puff of the pretty creature whose counterpart 
presentment has been sent to him. Diamond robberies 



306 FISHING FOR FREE PUFFS. 

are worth at least a column. Falling heir to $5,000,- 
000 or more will bring an interview that will be worth 
almost as much as the legacy. In everything an 
actor or an actress says and does the newspaper will 
find something worth printing, and in printing it the 
paper does exactly what the actor or actress wants — 
places him or her before the public. Mme. Janaiischek 
gets a slight jolt in going down the shaft of a Colorado 
mine, and the country is immediately informed that 
she has had a narrow escape from death. Minnie 
Maddern, a new star who expects to rival Lotta, is 
made a brevet officer of the Continental Guards of 
New Orleans, and her manager feels assured that the 
people of the United States would not sleep well if 
they didn't hear about it within twenty-four hours, so 
he gets the Associated Press to telegraph it in all direc- 
tions, that at least a few lives may be saved. A Bo- 
hemian prince presents Emma Thursby, at Prague, 
with* a pair of nightingales, and about ten lines of 
every newspaper this side of the Atlantic are wasted 
in making the silly announcement. The souvenir and 
flower " rackets " both carry a certain weight, and the 
lithograph that fills the eye as one gazes into a shoe 
store window is a glory that can never fade from the 
optic that has even for a second of time dwelt upon it. 
Minnie Palmer, if all reports be true, came to the 
front some time ago with a new bid for a free adver- 
tisement. She entertained a Louisville C ourier- Jour- 
nal reporter with a display that must have made the 
young man blush. " Our company has got into the 
chemise fever," exclaimed Minnie, artlessly, " and 
we're trying to see which can make the prettiest one. 
I'll show them to you," and then, regardless of the 
helpless man's blushes, she disemboweled a trunk and 
buried him beneath an avalanche of snowy underwear, 



FISHING FOR FREE PUFFS. 307 

Their construction was minutely explained, and then 
the conversation naturally led to flannels, which Min- 
nie confidentially remarked could not be worn by 
actors because of the risk of colds when compelled to 




ERNEST! ROSSI. 



leave them oft'. The theme could scarcely be pursued 
further than flannels, and the interview closed with 
Minnie's confession that she didn't like to be hugged 
on the stage in warm weather. In winter, and unen- 



308 FISHING FOR FREE PUFFS. 

cumbered by flannels, the operation was not so dis- 
tasteful. All of this may seem irrelevant, and having 
very little to do with dramatic art, but it made a col- 
umn for Minnie all the same. 

The Abbott Kiss, invented by John T. McEnnis, a 
reporter on the St. Louis Post- Dispatch, but always 
claimed bv Jimmv Morrissev, who was her agent at 
the time, traveled everywhere and was printed in 
every newspaper from New York to San Francisco. 
It had just about played out when in 1881, during the 
prevalence of small-pox, Miss Abbott had herself vac- 
cinated on one of her lower limbs, and again the papers 
advertised her. She afterwards acted in the capacity 
of interviewer for the St. Louis Globe- Democrat, and 
was commissioned to get a talk out of Patti, but spent 
all the time she was w r ith the diva in kissing and hug- 
ing her, and when she came away from her had noth- 
ing to write about. Still Miss Abbott is a hard-work- 
ing, gifted, and agreeable little lady, and must be 
regarded as the best lyric prima donna America can 
boast of. 

Speaking about Patti : she came to the United States 
under foreign management, and with all her sweetness 
and beauty of voice and the greatness of her reputa- 
tion, she could do nothing until an American manager 
who understood the art of advertising took hold of 
her. He began his work at once by decorating his 
theatre in lavish style for her first concert, and com- 
pleted his initial triumph by causing a crowd of 
young fellows to unhitch the horses from Patti's car- 
riage and run with the vehicle through the streets to 
her hotel. The report next day said the amateur 
horses were society swells, and so the news went into 
every State of the Union. Neilson's carriage was 
dragged through the street in the same way once at 



FISHING FOR FREE PUFFS. 309 

Toronto. Patti got another free " ad." by visiting 
Paddy Ryan, the pugilist John Sullivan knocked out 
of time, in his training quarters at New Orleans, just 
as Bernhardt went to see Englehardt's whale at Bos- 
ton for the sake of the advertisement she got. 

Just as Schneider kicked herself into the good graces 
of the Parisians, Catherine Lewis, of " Olivette " fame, 
managed to " fling " herself into popularity here. The 
Lewis fling in the farandole was known and sought 
after everywhere. It was a wild and wayward tossing 
of limbs and arms that caught the eye and held the 
attention not so much because there was anything 
artistic in it, but because one expected every minute 
to see it grow less and less restrained until it broke 
out into something like the reckless indecency of the 
cancan. It advertised Catherine Lewis as she has not 
been advertised since, and as she probably never will 
be again. As the "fling" is not dead yet I will try 
to describe it. After the solo and while the first chorus 
is being given she moves back with the other dancers, 
throwing her arms from right to left and left to right 
again, when the dancers came to a standstill. Olivette 
is seen posing in a lop-sided, Pisa-like attitude, with 
both arms and head inclining to the left. The chorus 
is repeated, and as the repetition begins the dancers 
turn themselves loose with Olivette in the van. 
" Oho " she sings and swings to the left ; " Oho " to 
the right, " Oho" to the left again, when out pops 
the left slipper, followed swiftly by the right ditto, and 
the toe of the latter foot-covering tumbles over the 
horizon of the orchestra leader's head, and there is a 
confusion of embroidery and white linen and silk hose 
that fills the eye of the man in the parquette with a 
flash of joy and causes a warm still wind to roll in a 
breezeful way around his cardiacal region. "Oho," 



310 fishing for Free puffs. 

"Oho" and "Oho" again, with more body throw- 
ing, and this time the elevation of the toe of the left 
slipper above the line of vision, just a little higher than 
before, followed by three more " Oho's," and the 
quivering of the satin slipper on the right foot high 
over the foot-lights and in close range to the man with 
field glasses to his eyes who is sitting in the first row 
of the parquette. And that's all there is to the faran- 
dole — nine swings or throws of the body and three 
kicks every time she comes down the stage, the alti- 
tude of the kick growing with each succeeding effort 
until the last spasmodic, aerial evolution of the satin 
slipper brings about a display of linen that would do 

Tedit to the lingerie counter of a dry goods store. 

)livette has the attention of the entire audience while 
this is going on. She goes up and comes down the 
stage twice, swinging and kicking with an anatomical 
riot behind her, every female member of the company 
from the chorus girl up to the Countess vying with 
Olivette in sending the farandole off with a hurrah and 
multiplicity of " flings." When the chorus has come 

o an end, there is a bold encore for its repetition, and 
away they go again. 

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! 

Then would they be missing, 
Surely the girls went round about 
So long it took them finding out. 
Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! 

Till something like kissing, 
Told as plainly as could be 
Where were he and she. 

Miss Lewis at one time while in New York was freely 
advertised in both meanings of the word, because she 
sold tickets for her benefit in her room at the hotel, 
where all could apply to purchase them. 

Maggie Duggan, a young lady until recently compar- 



FISHING FOR FREE PUFFS. 



311 



atively unknown, has suddenly made herself famous by 
nightly kicking her slipper to the top of the Bijou 
Theatre, New York. She is a comic opera singer. 







SLIPPERS FOR FREE PUFFS. 



This is lofty limb work that Mile. Sara, the original 
high kicker, might envy. 

Emilie Melville, an operatic star of California, in look- 



312 FISHING FOR FREE PUFFS. 

ing over her stock of presents could think of noth- 
ing more suitable or anything that would prove more 
acceptable to the dramatic critics of San Francisco and 
her friends than to give each one of her slippers. So 
she held a reception ; and, dressed in Oriental toilet, 
she presented each as he came with one of the tiny 
silken slippers in which her tootsies used to slumber on 
the stage. It was such a novel proceeding that Miss 
Melville got more gratuitous puffing than she could have 
paid for with the profits of one of her best seasons. 

Henry Mapleson, whom I know has no fear of the 
newspaper man, but rather courts his society and wooes 
the columns of his paper, made the following ridiculous 
statement (to a reporter) concerning the manner in 
which he and his wife, Marie Roze, were pestered by 
reporter^ on the road: "They began early in the 
morning. When I first opened my bed-room door I 
was sure to find one or two outside of it. No detail 
was too small for them. They would follow us around 
and give scraps of our conversation, and one fellow 
even sat at the same dinner-table with us in Kansas 
City and printed a list of all the things my wife ate, 
making it about five times as long as the truth called 
for, and adding such trifles as four oranges, six pieces 
of cake, etc. My wife was so angry when this account 
appeared in the afternoon paper that we determined to 
have our supper in our room, and, as the landlord would 
not consent to that, I bought a steak during the even- 
ing, and Marie Roze, still dressed as Helen of Troy, 
began to cook it over a spirit lamp. We were con- 
gratulating ourselves that no reporter would know any- 
thing about that supper, when a knock was given on 
the door. < Who's there? ' I called out. The answer 
came back through the keyhole : * I am a reporter of 
the Morning Buzzard, and I want to know what you 



FISHING FOR FREE PUFFS. 313 

had for supper. That Evening Crow fellow got ahead 
of me on the dinner, but I'll fetch him on the supper.' " 

A story that illustrates, in an exaggerated way, 
though, the tricks of the dramatic profession, is told of 
a shrewd agent who found himself in Mansfield, Ohio, 
with a company on his hands and pursued by bad 
business so relentlessly that he began to have doubts 
that he would ever see Union Square again. In this 
strait he called his never-failing wits to his aid and 
devised a plan straightway that led him out of the diffi- 
culty, as had happened to him many a time before. He 
went to the room of his star — his leading lady — and 
knocked. He was admitted. " Why, Sam," said 
she, " what do you want at this hour?" 

" I want your ear," said he. 

" Oh, is that all," said the leading lady, recovering 
from her pallor ; " I thought — but no matter ; go on." 

" You know business is bad," said he. 

" Well, I should smile," said the artiste ; " since I 
haven't had any salary for four weeks. What's the 
new racket." 

" It's this," said the agent : " If we expect to go out 
of this town we've got to do something Napoleonic. 
And you've got to do it." 

*' You forget my sex," said she. 

*« No, I don't," said he ; " there may be a Napoleon 
in petticoats as well as in trousers." 

" Very well, what is it?" 

" I want to get a column in each of the daily 
papers." 

" Well, I guess you'll want it, for all the newspaper 
boys know we've got a snide show this time," she 
said. 

" Well, I guess not, if you'll do what I tell you," 
said the artful agent. 

" What is that?" inquired the guileless actress. 



314 FISHING FOR FREE PUFFS. 

tk You know the railroad bridge outside of town?" 

" That shaky old wooden structure of patched logs 
and sleepers? " 

"Yes." 

"Well, what of it?" 

" That bridge will get us columns in every paper for 
forty miles around." 

" You've got 'em, Sam, sure.' 

" No, I haven't. I'm solid on the biz. Now listen : 
I want you to go to-morrow and stand in the middle 
of that bridge when the two 2 :20 trains pass each 
other going in opposite directions." 

" Well, you are fresh. What'll I do that for? " 

" For an 'ad.' " 

" And where will I be when the trains pass? " 

"Why, if you're smart and listen to me, you'll be 
clinging to the trestle-work underneath until they pass 
over you, then I'll head on back to the hotel and have 
all the reporters come up and interview you, and then 
there will be columns published, the house will be 
filled that night and we will rake in a heavy stake." 

The actress saw the point and had the pluck to exe- 
cute the project of the agent. She stood on the bridge 
at the appointed time. She shrieked in the most 
frantic manner. The engineer reversed the engine and 
whistled down brakes, but in spite of all the train 
passed over her. There was a great sensation. She 
was dragged out from the trestle-work and taken to 

CO 

the hotel. The papers which would not take the 
advertisement of the show because the manager could 
not pay in advance sent reporters to interview the 
actress on her narrow escape, and gave columns to the 
company. The result was a series of full houses and 
the "snides" made a triumphant march eastward 
on the impetus of the shrewd agent's " gag." 



CHAPTER XXII, 



THE ACTRESS AND THE INTERVIEWER. 

Iii no other country in the world does the inter- 
viewer's profession thrive as in these United States. 
From the cabinet minister — nay, the President him- 
self — down to the common felon, all at different times 
are liable to what is called " the pressure of the pump- 
ing process." Some classes naturally like being 
interviewed, because all publicity adds to their impor- 
tance and notoriety. The politicians are a specimen of 
this species. Then, again, another class regards the 
interview as a legitimate means of advertising and 
of attracting public attention to themselves and their 
doings. This class specially includes the dramatic pro- 
fession. An enterprising manager is always ready to 
introduce his star to a journalist. Actresses and prima 
donne are to a great degree public personages, and 
there is an insatiable desire on the part of individuals 
to learn something of the foot-light favorites when they 
have doffed the stage costume, rubbed off the paint and 
powder, and become, as it were, for the time being an 
ordinary mortal. Hence, the newspapers have catered 
to this popular inquisitiveness, and there is scarcely an 
actress or sweet singer of note who has not passed the 
ordeal of the interviewing fiend. Mr. Henry W. 
Moore, city editor and dramatic critic of the St. Louis 
Post- Dispatch, who has done as much interviewing in 
this line as any newspaper man in the Western country, 

(315) 



316 THE ACTRESS AND THE INTERVIEWER. 

thus records his impressions of the operatic and 
dramatic celebrities whom he has met : — 

Adelina Patti, the casta diva, always receives the 
journalist attired in handsome toilettes. Her marriage 
with the Marquis de Caux rendered her aristocratic in 
manners, and her behavior always has in it a tinge of 
noblesse oblige. There is an almost imperceptible 
flavor of condescension in her tone, which, while 
courteous, is rather formal. Since her separation from 
De Caux, La Marquise has become more accessible, 
and both she and Nicolini are almost warm in their 
effusions to journalists. 

Christine Nilsson receives the interviewer pleasantly, 
but rather dignified in manner. She is somewhat cold 
in conversation, but her manners are always courteous. 
She talks little. 

Etelka Gerster likes the interviewer. At first she 
regarded him as an American curiosity, but having 
learned his value she began to caress him. Gerster is 
not at all so sweet in private life as is generally be- 
lieved. The Hungarian prima donna is very passionate 
and quick-tempered, and rules her husband, Dr. 
Gardine, with her whims. In the presence of the 
journalist she conceals her claws beneath her velvety 
hand and is sweetness itself. She talks much, dotes 
on America and the American people, and all that sort 
of gush. Her dresses are not particularly artistic, 
conveying the impression that she is slovenly in this 
regard. 

Clara Kellogg submits to an interview as if it were 
a regular business transaction. Her mother is always 
present and will frequently make suggestions. Miss 
Kellogg chats pleasantly, but she has no warmth in her 
manner and no magnetism in her conversation. 

Annie Louise Cary is what the journalists term a 



THE ACTRESS AND THE INTERVIEWER. 317 

"jolly " girl. She does not care a whit what she says 
or does. She will lausrh and chat as if the interviewer 
were an old acquaintance. She greets him with a spon- 
taneous warmth and familiarity which are pleasant to 
him. He may ask the most inquisitive questions and 
she will reply with a shrewd smile. Amiable, good- 
tempered and lively in disposition, she is a great 
favorite with newspaper men. 

Minnie Hauk is impetuosity personified. Minnie 
usually has a grievance against her manager, and she 
will pour her woes into the journalist's ears with re- 
markable loquacity. But Minnie has a mother. After 
the interviewer is gone Minnie will send him a note or 
a messenger requesting him in Heaven's name not to 
publish what she said or she would be undone. Yet, 
the next time Minnie meets a night of the quill she 
reiterates her woes and wrongs with the same impetu- 
osity. She is frank to a'faulf, and confides a good deal in 
human nature. Her frankness has involved her several 
times in trouble. She is very apt to become unrea- 
sonably jealous of any other prima donna in the troupe, 
and thus always keeps the impressario in a state of 
nervousness. 

Emma Abbott is the gusher par excellence. At the 
first glance of the interviewer she rushes towards him, 
seizes him with both her hands, is Oh, so, so glad to 
see him ! She talks with great rapidity and unceas- 
ingly. The scribe to her is an old familiar friend. 
She insists on his calling on her, dining with her, etc., 
etc. Her friendliness is overwhelming. She loads the 
journalist with favors, and almost embraces him in the 
ardor of her affection. 

Sarah Bernhardt has all the French warmth and 
demonstrativeness. She is witty and vivacious in her 
conversation, really likes journalists, and will spend a 
whole day with them. She never tires, and is a study 



318 THE ACTRESS AND THE INTERVIEWER. 

to the newspaper man. She is, however, not insensi- 
ble to flattery. Her curiosity about things American 
is very keen. Being a delightful entertainer, she was 
very popular with the journalistic profession. She is 
fond of inviting them to breakfast. 

Clara Morris is an excellent subject for an interview. 
Miss Morris always prepares to receive the representa- 
tive of the press in some picturesque attitude or pose. 
She has a fine perception of artistic effect, and never 
loses sight of the fact that it is an interview, and hence 
has an eye to what will appear in print. In her dis- 
course she aims to be epigrammatic and witty ; likes 
to be novel and original. Her knowledge is very 
varied, and she converses with ease and fluency. Her 
face sparkles, and her reception is always extremely 
cordial. 

Modjeska, otherwise the Countess Bozenta, is, per- 
haps, the best educated actress on the stage. She is a 
gifted linguist, well read in French, German, and Eng- 
lish literature. She is a charming conversationalist. 
In manners she is a perfect lady, without any stage 
eccentricities. She is a delightful hostess, and dis- 
penses hospitality most gracefully. Her bearing is 
courteous but thoroughly friendly, and there is the 
impress of la grande dame in her demeanor. She is 
partial to canine pets. 

Adelaide Neilson captured every journalist who ever 
interviewed her. She seemed to bend all her energies 
to captivate her visitor. Her remarkable beauty was 
a powerful aid, and the charm of her manner was irre- 
sistible. When necessary, she was almost a man of 
business, and transacted her affairs with much ability. 
Poor Adelaide was too potent a spell for ordinary in- 
terviewers to withstand, and she always carried her 
point. 

Mary Anderson is a great talker. Her mother and 



THE ACTRESS AND THE INTERVIEWER. 319 

step-father, Dr. Hamilton Griffin, are usually in at- 
tendance at an interview. She is decided in her opin- 
ions, and expresses her views fearlessly, but her 
remarks are superficial. She is lively and a regular 
tom-boy, and hesitates at nothing. 

Fanny Davenport, who is noted for her expensive 
costumes on the stage, is the reverse in private life. 
She is nearly always in a neglige attire and looks some- 
what slovenly. Fanny is rather averse to the inter- 
viewer, but when she submits she is as charming and 
pleasant a hostess as can be imagined. But neverthe- 
less she thinks it a decided bore to entertain. 

Maggie Mitchell is a whole-souled, generous woman, 
without a spark of affectation. She is frank, pleasant, 
and amiable. 

Lotta, vivacious Lotta, is very demure in the pres- 
ence of her mother and the journalist. She is quite 
unlike the Lotta of the stage. Mrs. Crabtree joins in 
the conversation, which Lotta carries on in a very sub- 
dued but friendly manner. 

Janauschek is firm, solid, and determined in her 
convictions. She has strong likes and dislikes. She 
talks with much emphasis. 

Mrs. D. P. Bowers is a pleasant lady to visit. She 
is quite motherly in her manners. Her conversation 
contains much shrewd, caustic depth. 

Charlotte Thompson is intellectual. She possesses 
what the French call esprit and her conversation is 
always enjoyable. 

Emma Thursby is an interesting lady. The queen 
of the concert-room is vivacious, lively, and talkative. 
She is exceedingly fond of representatives of the press. 

Marie Roze is only an indifferent entertainer. She 
is very fond of pet dogs. The effort is always visible 
in her conversation, and the visitor feels that she be- 
lieves she is merely doing a necessary duty. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 

Little Peggy, afterwards the famous Mistress Wel- 
lington, was down at the shores of Liffey drawing 
water for her mother, when Madame Violante, a rope- 
walker, met her, and taking a liking to the girl, made 
terms with the parents and obtained possession of her. 
Madame Violante walked the rope with a child tied to 
her feet, and lovely little Peggy for a while assisted in 
this way at her mistress's entertainments. When the 
Madame got to Dublin she found a juvenile company 
playing "Cinderella" there, and at once began the 
organization of a class of children, who appeared in 
the play with Peggy as one of the bright luminaries. 
This was her introduction to the stage, which she trod 
with such brilliant success in after years. Nor was 
she the only one of the famous old English actresses 
trained to the drama from childhood. All through 
the history of theatricals, from and before Woffing- 
ton's time, children were made participants in the 
play, and the seeds planted thus early ripened into 
the richest fruit. Until a very recent date it was not 
deemed the duty of anybody to interfere with this 
kind of training — not even with the barbarous treat- 
ment to which children training for the circus ring 
were submitted. Less than a half century ago the 
Viennese children went through the country dancing, 
and were unmolested by any philanthropically inclined 
body or any excessively humane individual. The 

(320) 



m ammmmm 




MISS CONNOLLY IN ENCHANTMENT. 



A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 321 

juvenile "Pinafore" companies of two seasons ago 
were regarded kindly by press and public ; and, in- 
deed, until quite recently no extraordinary war was 
made against presenting the talents of a child actor or 
actress to the people. The Society for the Prevention 
of Cruelty to Children has, however, organized a 
stubborn resistance to the employment of little ones 
in stage representations ; and while it may be well to 
exercise some authority for the protection of infants 
and for the preservation of the stage from a deluge 
of child-talent, there can be no justification in allowing 
that authority to run riot in plucking every blossom 
from the tree of histrionism, and erecting a permanent 
barrier against the development of native talent, when 
any happens to exist in a child of tender years. The 
experience of more than two centuries shows that the 
best training is that which begins earliest, which begins 
slowly, and widens only with the slow progress of the 
years. There are very few actors or actresses who 
have walked out of private life into the glare of the 
foot-lights with anything like success. The amateur 
may sometimes be suddenly metamorphosed into a 
full-fledged professional, with a bit of reputation to 
help him along the road he has chosen to travel, but 
this happens very rarely. Only those who begin early 
and study hard, and who have often to wait a long 
time for recognition, gain a place in the Thespian 
temple, and it is to those whose infant eyes open 
almost upon the mysteries and wonders of the mimic 
world, whose little limbs grow to strength behind the 
scenes, and whose lives are identified completely with 
all that have place or being behind the foot-lights, that 
it is given to hope for position in the profession into 
which they have been born instead of kidnapped. 
I think the society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 




(322) 



LITTLE CORINNE. 



A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 323 

Children did a very good thing when it took Little 
Corinne from the stage. The child was overtaxed far 
beyond her years ; there was nothing very clever about 
her any more than there would be about a school-girl 
of the same age who had been taught to speak her 
piece and did it boldly, but awkwardly and inartisti- 
cally. It was more painful than pleasant to sit out a 
performance of " Cinderella " with this offspring of 
the Kemble family in the role of the heroine of the 
glass slipper, and it was a temporary blessing to the 
public while the little thing was kept out of the way. 
Like all the precocious ventures on the stage, Corinne 
will gradually fade from memory, and the only thought 
left of her will be a painful recollection of her childish 
efforts to please the grown people who were foolish 
enough to go to the theatre to see her. 

The young man or the young lady who has given 
years of study to preparation for the stage finds the 
debut night one fraught with fears and hopes. There 
are friends behind the scenes and friends in the audi- 
ence willing to overlook faults and exaggerate excel- 
lencies ; but there are cold, stern critics, too, anxious 
to puncture the new candidate for public favor in every 
tender spot their cruel eyes can search out, and there 
is the great public, that fickle body whose applause or 
condemnation often depends upon the whim of the 
moment. The effort is an enormous one to the new 
player; the suspense, frightful. A whole life's work 
may be swept out of sight in a moment, and the life 
itself blighted forever. But when the moment of suc- 
cess arrives — what a thrill of joy the triumph sends 
to the heart of the actress, if actress it be ! What a 
dream of glory she already begins to live in ! How 
her brain throbs and her heart bounds, and all the 
world seems a paradise, beautiful and fair as Eden was 



324 A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 

when it left the hands of the Creator ! Friends crowd 
around, the house is ringing with applause, and she 
tears away from the congratulations and kisses and 
hand-shakings to step out before the curtain, and, with 
glowing face and tears in her eyes, kisses her hand and 
makes a profoundly thankful obeisance to the audience. 
Then she returns to her crowding friends on the stage, 
from the manager down to the call-boy and scene- 
shifters, and her ears ring with praise and encouraging 
words until it is time for the curtain to go up once 
more. 

The debut of Emma Livry, an artiste who promised 
to lead a very brilliant career, but who was suddenly 
and early cut down by death, is described in a very in- 
teresting manner by one who was present. It was at 
the Grand Opera House, Paris, and the theatre was 
filled from parquette to dome with an extraordinary 
audience. Louis Napoleon was there, and the Empress 
Eugenie ; princes and dukes filled the boxes, and the 
nobility of France, representative Americans and 
prominent Englishmen were in the audience. Emma 
Livry was then only sixteen. From her earliest child- 
hood, says the writer, she had been devoted to the art 
of dancing — though this was no extraordinary thing, 
for there are a large number of girls always in training 
for the Grand Opera in Paris, who are taken at the age 
of four years, and kept in constant practice until they 
reach womanhood, when they appear in public. But 
this girl had shown extraordinary genius. In her later 
years the celebrated dancer, Marie Taglioni, Countess 
de Voisius, hearing of the new dancer, left her villa on 
the Lake of Como, and her palace in Venice, to come 
to Paris to give the girl lessons. Her improvement 
was miraculous. Taglioni said she would renew the 
triumphs she herself had won in former days. 



A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 325 

And now she glided upon the stage. The brilliant 
audience ceased their chatter as she appeared. The 
occasion took the character of what it was afterwards 
called in the newspapers — * « a great solemnity. ' ' She 
was very young and was just at that period in the life 
of a girl when her figure is apt to be what old-fash- 
ioned people call raw-boned. She was tall, thin, and 
pale. Her face was not handsome. Her form gave 
no evidence of physical strength. 

She was received in a hush of silence. " Let us 
see," this great audience seemed to say, " what you 
really can do in this poetic art." Any one who could 
have connected sensuality or grossness with this girl 
would have been baser than a sybarite ; and yet her 
dress was the conventional dress of ballet dancers — 
short to the calf of the leg but thickly clad above. 

She began. O Grace, you never found a prototype 
till now ! Painting, Sculpture, you paled before this 
supple, elastic, firm, yet dainty tread. At the conclu- 
sion of her first movement, when with a gush of sweet 
music she sprang like a fawn to the foot-lights, and ex- 
• tending her slender arms and delicate hands towards 
the audience, as if to ask, " Come, what is the ver- 
dict on me now?" a burst of enthusiastic applause, 
loud shouts of " Brava ! " and " Bravissima ! " 
" C'est magnifique ! " waving of perfumed handker- 
chiefs, a deluge of sweet flowers formed the response. 

The whole evening was a series of triumphs. The 
Emperor and Empress sent an aid-de-camp behind the 
scene to offer her the Imperial congratulations. Marie 
Taglioni, accompanied by her noble husband, sought 
the girl also, and taking from her breast a magnificent 
diamond star, which had been given her in former 
days by the Emperor of Russia, " Here," said she, 




(326) TAGLIONI CONGRATULATING EMMA LIVRY, 



A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 327 

" take this the queen of dance, Marie Taglioni, is 
dead — long live the queen, Emma Livry ! " 

As I passed out amongst the dense crowd, the 
writer continues, I saw a woman of middle age, and 
respectably dressed, leaning against one of the mar- 
ble columns in the vestibule. Her face was flushed 
and she was wiping tears from her eyes. 

" You weep, Madonna? " said a gentleman who was 
passing. 

" Yes, Monsieur," she replied, " but it is with joy. 
Who would not be proud of such a daughter, and of 
such a tribute to her genius? " 

There are few favorites of the public to-day who 
have not fought their way to the front inch by inch, 
who have not sacrificed everything for their art, toiling 
through the day that the work of the night might 
show improvement — very few who have not served 
years of apprenticeship on the stage before the mo- 
ment of success arrived. And this has been the rule 
always. Nell Gwynne, the fish-girl, whose beauty 
and bright repartee attracted the attention of Lacy, the 
actor, and who peddled oranges to the audience before 
she began to amuse them on the stage, managed with- 
out much trouble, and during a short stage experience, 
to win the heart of Charles II., who made her his mis- 
tress and retained her while he lived, his parting 
words to those around his death-bed being, " See that 
poor Nelly doesn't starve ;" but Nelly did starve. She 
died in poverty and left a line of dukes to perpetuate 
her plebeian blood in royal veins. She died in 
November, 1687, in her thirty-seventh year. 

Lola Montez, the pretty Irish girl who in her four- 
teenth year eloped with one Capt. James to avoid a 
disagreeable marriage, accompanied him to India, 
where they got mutually tired of each other and re- 



328 A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 

turning to England studied dancing and went on the 
stage, was another of those fortunate and unfortunate 
fascinating women whose lives fade away fast and 
who after a brief hey-day of luxuries lie down in rags 
and poverty to seek a needed rest that is never broken. 
She won the hearts of kings, led a revolution in 
Poland, and finally, after being driven from her Bava- 
rian castle where, as Countess of Lansfield she had 
ruled, and strutting a brief hour in London in male 
attire, died in this country January 17, 1861. Her 
ashes rest in Greenwood Cemetery, but she was saved 
from a pauper's grave only through the charity of 
some friend. During her life she had thrown away 
millions. Fallin, the husband of Maude Granger, is 
the son of the man with whom Lola Montez had her last 
escapade, Fallin, Sr., deserting his family in New 
York to accompany Lola to San Francisco. Her real 
name was Marie Dolores Eliza Rospanna Gilbert. 

Another child of genius whom waywardness and 
frailty brought to an early grave was Adelaide McCord, 
better known to the world as Adah Isaacs Menken. 
She was born near New Orleans, June 15, 1835, and 
when still young went on the stage as a ballet dancer 
in one of the theatres of the Crescent City. She had 
been expelled from school, and tiring of her native vil- 
lage, where she had created a sensation by embracing 
the Jewish faith, she made the journey to New Orleans, 
and as I have said went on the stas:e. Her career 
there was not a very brilliant one until she began play- 
ing Mazeppa, the part with which her name has since 
been identified. Prior to her time men had appeared 
in this role. Her first appearance was on Monday 
night, June 17, 1861, in the Green Street Theatre, 
New York, then under the management of Capt. John 
B. Smith. On the first attempt to go up the run the 



A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 329 

horse after making one turn fell, crashing through the 

o ' o o 

scenery with the Menken on its back. Horse and rider 
were picked up, and after some delay the ascent was 
made amidst a great deal of enthusiasm. The appear- 
ance of so beautiful a woman as Menken in the scarcity 
of clothing that Mazeppa requires created a furore, 
and from that time her success was assured. She 
fought spiritedly in the combat scene, breaking her 
sword and otherwise won the good opinion of her 
first audience. Previous to this she had married 
Alexander Menken, a musician in Galveston, but 
by this time also she had obtained an Indiana 
divorce. While in New York she met John C. Hee- 
nan, fresh from his victory over Tom Sayers, and 
after a brief courtship married him. Another Indiana 
divorce soon dissolved this knot, as it did a third time 
in the case of Orpheus C. Kerr (Robt. H. Newell). 
All this time her fame was growing. She went to 
London, and after setting the English metropolis on 
fire with her beauty returned to New York, where she 
married James Barclay, a merchant, in whose mansion 
she and her friends held such wild orgies that Barclay 
was glad when she fled to Paris, where she was stricken 
down in the midst of her mad career, in 1868. The 
brief but expressive epitaph, "Thou knowest," is 
carved upon her tomb. 

Mary Anderson, the tragedienne, is the most phe- 
nomenal success of late years. She was born July 28, 
1859, in Sacramento, California. Her parents re- 
moved to Louisville when she was one year and a half 
old, and there she was educated in the Ursuline Con- 
vent. She had a longing to be an actress from 
her earliest years, and all her readings tended in 
the direction of the stage. She was taken away from 
school at the age of thirteen, to pursue her studies for 



830 A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 

the profession to which she seemed to be so strongly 
inclined. At the age of fifteen she went to Cincinnati 
to see Charlotte Cnshman act. While there she 
called on Miss Cushman, who said she could give her 
only a five-minute audience. Miss Anderson recited 
passages from " Kichard HI.," Schiller's " Maid of 
Orleans," and " Hamlet." She remained with Miss 
Cushman three hours, and the great actress had such 
confidence in her talents that she told her to study a 
few hours each day for a year and then she might go 
on the stage. This Miss Anderson did. An accident 
of some kind or other left Macauley's Theatre in Louis- 
ville with a Saturday night for which there was no at- 
traction. Macauley knew Miss Anderson's desire to 
go on the stage, and meeting her step-father, Dr. 
Hamilton Griffin, in the street, told him the girl, who 
was then only sixteen, might have the theatre that 
night. Miss Anderson was overjoyed. She chose 
Juliet for her debut, got a costume hurriedly together 
and after one rehearsal and three days' preparation, ap- 
peared before a large audience, and made a decided 
hit. This was on November 27, 1875. Macauley was 
so pleased with the debutante that he gave her his first 
open week at starring terms. She then went to St. 
Louis, in March, 187G, and added greatly to the repu- 
tation she had won in her home city. Mr. John W. 
Norton supported her. Ben DeBar sent her to his 
New Orleans Theatre, and while in the Crescent City she 
was presented, by the citizens, with a check for $500, 
and the Washington artillery presented her with a 
jewelled badge of the battalion. Returning to Louis- 
ville again she continued her studies through the sum- 
mer, began starring the following season, and has been 
before the public ever since. She is a young lady of re- 
markable personal beauty, intelligent and accom- 



A FEW FOOT-LIGHT* FAVORITES. 331 

plished, a hard student, and one of the noblest and 
fairest of her sex that ever adorned the stage. 

Lotta Mignon Crabtree, another of the very success- 
ful women on the stage, and one of the brightest sou- 
brettes that ever delighted a public, was born at No. 
750 Broadway, New York, on November 7, 1847. In 
1854 her people removed to California, and Lotta 
made her first appearance on a stage at a concert given 
at Laport ; her second appearance was at Petal uma, in 
1858, when she played Gertrude in "The Loan of a 
Lover." She starred, they say, for two years as La 
Petite Lotta. Before she made her appearance in New 
York we hear of her in San Francisco at Burt's New 
Idea and Gilbert's Melodeon — concert saloons — 
where Joe Murphy, Barnard, Cotton, Pest, Burbank, 
Billy Sheppard, Backus and other prominent minstrels 
were engaged. The Worrell Sisters, Maggie Moon 
(now Mrs. Williamson) and Lotta were in the com- 
pany, and there was great rivalry between them at the 
time. The theatre was crowded every night up to the 
close of the first part in which there was a " walk 
around," in which the girls entered into the liveliest 
kind of a competition. Each did her utmost to out- 
dance the other. Each favorite had her host of 
admirers and the demonstration on the part of the 
audience was intense. After the " walk around " the 
house became almost empty, showing that this was the 
attractive feature. Lotta was very ambitious, and 
whenever she failed to score a triumph she would 
retire to her dressing-room and cry bitterly. From 
San Francisco her parents took her to New York, 
where she gave her first performance at Niblo's Saloon, 
June 1, 1864. She wasn't a success in New York, so 
she went to Chicago and played " The Seven Sisters " 
at McVicker's. Fortune began to smile on her there, 



332 



A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 



and her success dates from this point. One night dur- 
ing: this enffiiffement an unknown admirer threw a 




LOTTA. 



$300 gold watch and chain upon the stage. Lotta 
cannot sing any more, but she kicks as cutely as of 



A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 333 

yore, dances neatly, and is as vivacious qs a girl of six- 
teen. 

Maggie Mitchell, who has been a great favorite ever 
since she produced " Fanchon " at Laura Keene's 




MAGGIE MITCHELL. 

Theatre, June 9, 1862, was born in New York in 
1832, of poor parents. She began to play child parts 
at the old Bowery and in 1851 had advanced to 
responsible business. She made a hit at Burton's 
Theatre as Julia in " The Soldier's Daughter," and 



334 



A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 



then began starring in "The French Spy," "The 
Young Prince," and like plays, but did nothing remark- 
able until, as I have already said, she made a hit in 
"Fanchon," an adaptation of George Sands' s novel 
"La Petite Fadette." Following this came "Jane 
Eyre," "The Pearl of Savoy," and " Mignon." 
Miss Mitchell has amassed a fortune by her efforts. 
Her name off the stage is Mrs. Paddock, she having 




EMMA ABBOTT, 

married Mr. Henry Paddock, of Cleveland, Ohio, in 
Troy, New York, October 15, 1868. 

Emma Abbott, the finest of American lyric artistes, 
after the usual freaks of an ambitious childhood and 
the trials of an operatic training in Milan and Paris, 
was given a London engagement by Mr. Gye and 
made her debut at the Royal Italian Opera, Covent 
Garden, on May 2, 1876. The debut was a success, 



A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 335 

and with the congratulation of friends, the best wishes 
of all who knew her, and the predictions of the best 
judges of vocal music that she had a brilliant future 
ahead of her, she set out on a tour of the provinces, 
singing through England and Ireland and everywhere 
winning the love and applause of the people. Return- 
ing to her own country the artiste gave two seasons of 
concerts, and began to sing light opera. She has 
created the role of Virginia in " Paul and Virginia," 
and Juliet in. " Romeo and Juliet," both which operas 
she introduced here. Her repertory includes, besides 
the two named, " Mignon," " Maritana," "The 
Bohemian Girl," "Martha," "II Trovatore," and 
" Faust." She has a sweet, clear, crystalline voice, 
which she uses to great effect, is a charming lady per- 
sonally, a careful, pure, and energetic artiste, and 
altogether wholly deserves to be called, as she is, 
" Honest Little Emma." 

Marion Elmore, a charming little soubrette who is 
looking after Lotta's laurels, is a native of England 
and has been on the stage since her third year, having 
then played Meenie with Joe Jefferson in "Rip Van 
Winkle." She was born in 1860 in a tent on the gold 
fields of Sandhurst, Australia. She came to this 
country with Lydia Thompson in 1878, and played in 
burlesque until the season of 1881-2 when she took 
a soubrette part in Willie Edouin's " Sparks." She is 
now starring under the management of Hayden & Davis 
in " Chispa," a California play. 

Edwin Booth, the illustrious son of Junius Brntus 
Booth, was born at Belair, near Baltimore, Maryland, 
in November, 1833. He was his father's dresser, 
accompanying him on all his tours, and receiving from 
him lessons in histrionism. On September 10, 1849, 
he made his first appearance at the Boston Museum as 



336 A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 

Tressel, in " Richard III.," and on May 22, 1850, 
appeared at the Arch Street Theatre, Philadelphia, as 
Wilford, in the "Iron Chest." In 1850 he distin- 
guished himself by playing "Richard III.," at the 
Chatham Theatre, New York, in the place of his father, 
who had disappointed. His first independent appear- 
ance in the metropolis, however, was made on May 4, 
1857, as Richard III., at the Metropolitan, afterwards 
the Winter Garden Theatre. In 1851 he went to Cali- 
fornia and thence wandered to the Sandwich Islands 
and Australia in 1854. In 1857 he returned to New 
York. He was known as an actor of ability, but it 
was not until his famous engagements at the Winter 
Garden that he succeeded in making a really profound 
impression on the public. During this revival "Ham- 
let" run one hundred nights and Mr. Booth at once 
stepped to a foremost position before the public. His 
disastrous investment in the theatre that bore his 
name in New York is well known. It compelled him 
to go into bankruptcy in 1872, since which time he 
has been the most successful of American stars. He 
has been twice married — to Mary Devlin, an actress 
in 1861, who died in 1862, and to Mary McVicker, 
daughter of J. H. McVicker, of Chicago, who died in 
1881. His Hamlet is the finest interpretation of that 
character on the American stage, and this with Ber- 
tuccio, in " The Fool's Revenge," and Brutus, are his 
best impersonations. 

John McCullough, though born in Ireland, came to 
this country when very young. He was poor and an 
orphan, and poverty had been " looking in at the door " 
of the humble home where he passed his boyhood for 
many a year. Yet the tenant farm which his father 
held was once the pride of all the country round, and 
the child's earliest recollections called to mind a happy 



A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 



:*:57 



time which too soon, alas, passed away. His mother 
had died when the son was a mere lad, and misfortunes 
came not singly but in hosts after that bereavement. 
Sir Harvey Bruce, the landlord of the estate, though 
a kindly man, as Mr. McCullough testified, claimed his 
legal rights, and all that appertained to the estate held 
by the family was taken possession of by law, and 
father and son driven out from their home. 

" How well I recall the time," said Mr. McCullough, 
" and every scene and incident of that eviction — as it 
would, I suppose, be called now. I was a boy of 
about twelve years or so, and the greatest trial to me 
was the sale of a pony which I prized most highly. I 
couldn't bear to part with the pony, and Sir Harvey 
Bruce, who saw my grief and knew its cause, kindly 
arranged matters so that before Ions: I was able to call 
the animal once more my own. It was an act of good- 
ness which, of course, I have never forgotten." 

Not long after the eviction the father died, and the 
boy was left in the care of an uncle. But, like thou- 
sands of others, young McCullough had heard of the 
land of freedom beyond the Atlantic, and it was not 
long before he decided to leave kindred and friends, 
and seek a home in America. With all his earthly 
possessions in a bundle the young lad landed at New 
York, and with characteristic pluck and energy began 
the battle for existence. He followed various callings, 
but soon felt within him the desire to become an actor. 
Fortunately the foreman of a chair factory in Phila-. 
delphia, where he was employed, sympathized with the 
aspirations of the future actor, and often studied with 
him the great Shakespearean tragedies in which Mc- 
Cullouoli afterward attained such renown. 

It was in the winter of 1857 that the young aspirant 
for Thespian honors first stood upon the stage ; and he 



338 



A FEW FOOT-LIGHT IAVORJLTES. 




CALLED BEFORE THE CURTAIN. 

began in Philadelphia his professional career at the 
munificent salary of $4 a week. For several seasons 



A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 339 

he acted the " heavy villain " line in the Shakespearean 
drama, and made steady improvement in his art. A 
great event in his career was his engagement to sup- 
port the great Forrest in 1862 ; for it gave him oppor- 
tunities which such a man as McCullough was not slow 
to improve. The grand qualities which marked 
Forrest's acting were made the subject of careful study 
by the young actor, and to-day John McCullough is re- 
cognized everywhere as the successor to the famous 
American tragedian. His career as an actor, inter- 
rupted only by a brief managerial experience in San 
Francisco, has been one of steadily increasing success. 
John McCullough' s starring experience dates from 
only a few years back ; yet his impersonations, with 
peerless Virginius at the head, have won fame and for- 
tune in all parts of the country, and gained for him 
also the highest honors on the English stage. 

J. K. Emmett, or Joe Emmett, as he is familiarly 
called the world over, was born in St. Louis on March 
23, 1841. He early had a penchant for the stage, 
and could rattle bones, play a drum or do a song and 
dance on a cellar-door better than any of his com- 
panions. He began life as a painter, but soon left the 
pot and brush for the stage of the St. Louis Bowery, 
where his specialty was Dutch "wooden-shoe busi- 
ness." He could sing finely, and was as graceful as a 
woman. So popular did he become in his line that 
Dan Bryant engaged him for his New York house 
in 1866. Two seasons later Charles Gayler wrote 
" Fritz," a nonsensical play without rhyme or reason, 
and Emmett opened with it in Buffalo. His success 
was indifferent at first, but within a short time " Fritz " 
and Emmett became the rage, and for fifteen years. the 
people have actually run after this star. His name 
and play will fill any theatre in the United States, and 



340 A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 

in many places outside of the United States. He is 
the great pet of the public. Time and again has he 
disappointed them, but it makes no difference ; the 
next time he announces himself ready to play they are 
therein thrones. Joe Emmett has friends the whole 
world over, and he is welcomed and admired every- 
where. 

John T. Raymond's real name is John T. O'Brien. 
He became stage-struck while clerking in a store, and 
after a brief amateur experience made his first appear- 
ance on the professional stage as Lopez, in " The 
Honeymoon," on June 27, 1853, and played comedy 
with varying fortune until 1874, when "The Gilded 
Age," which had been dramatized, was brought out at 
Rochester, New York, on August 31st, and he made an 
immense hit as Col. Mulberry Sellers. Next to 
Colonel Sellers, John T. Raymond's enduring popu- 
larity rests upon his impersonation of Fresh, the Ameri- 
can, in the drama of that name, which he is now 
impersonating throughout the country. In connection 
with both his best known parts Mr. Raymond may be 
said to have " made " the plays they are framed in. 
Without them those plays would be flat, and ' in any 
other hands than his the characters which relieve them 
of that odium would be insipid. It is the actor's art 
and personal magnetism alone which make them what 
they are — successes. A good story, whether it be 
true or not, is told about Raymond and John McCul- 
lough. The latter was asked to appear as Ingomar, 
with Miss Anderson as Parthenia, at a benefit perform- 
ance for a friend. As an additional inducement the 
beneficiary asked Raymond to play Poly dor. " Cer- 
tainly, with great pleasure," said Sellers; "I will 
travel one thousand miles any time to play Poly dor to 
McCullough's Ingomar." The happy man ran off to 



A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 341 

tell his good fortune to McCullough : but the trage- 
dian, in his deepest Virginius voice, answered him : 
" No, sir, never, never again ! Once and out." The 
explanation of Mac's refusal to have Raymond in the 
cast is given as follows : — 

It seems that at a certain benefit in Virginia City, 
" Ingomar " was the play, Mr. McCullough sustaining 
the title role and Mr. Raymond played Poly dor. Poly- 
dor, it Avill be remembered, is the old Greek duffer 
who has a mortgage on Myron's real estate, and presses 
for payment in hopes to get Parthenia' s hand in mar- 
riage. The performance went beautifully, and the 
applause was liberal, for McCullough was playing his 
best. Raymond was the crookedest and most miserly 
of Poly dors, and the savage intensity he threw into his 
acting surprised all who imagined he could only play 
light comedy. All went more than well until Ingomar 
offered himself as a slave to Poly dor in payment of 
Myron's little account.. "What, you?" screamed 
Poly dor, and, apparently overcome by the thought, 
he "took a tumble," and fell forward upon Ingomar. 
Ingomar stepped back in dismay, when Polydor, on all 
fours, crept nimbly between his sturdy legs and tried 
to climb up on his back. The audience " took a tum- 
ble," and the roof quivered and the walls shook with 
roars of laughter. "D — n you," groaned Ingomar, 
sotto voce, "if I only had you at the wings?" But 
Polydor nimbly eluded his grasp, and, knocking right 
and left the dozen supes, who were on as the army, he 
skipped to the front of the stage and climbed up 
out of reach of the projecting mouldings of the pros- 
cenium. Here he clung, and, to make matters 
worse, grinned cheerfully at the pursuers he had 
escaped, and rapidly worked the string of a trick wig, 
the long hair of which flapped up and down in the 



342 



A FEW FOOT-LIGHT FAVORITES. 



most ludicrous fashion. It was impossible for the play 
to proceed, and the curtain was rung down, leaving 
Poly dor still on his lofty perch, while the audience 
laughed and shouted itself hoarse. And this is the 



reason why Mr. McCullough said, 
again ! " to Mr. Raymond's offer. 



No, 



sir, never 




FAY TEMPLETON IN " BILLEE TAYLOR. 

I may add that among the young people of the stage 
who are possessed of that personal magnetism that 
makes them popular, is Fay Templeton, who is not 
only pretty, but thoroughly original. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



CHINESE AND JAPANESE THEATRICALS. 

If the Chinese must go they will have to close up 
the large theatres in San Francisco owned and con- 
trolled by Celestial managers. In these temples of 
the almond-eyed Thespis extraordinary plays are en- 
acted running through months and even years, in a 
to-be-continued style, for, the Chinese dramatist, who 
never writes anything but tragedy of the wildest and 
most harrowing kind, always begins with the birth of 
his hero or heroine and does not let the merest incident 
pass until his or her friends are ready to sit down to a 
feast of roast pig and rice by the side of the principal 
character's grave. The dramas are mainly historical, 
and many a Chinaman who starts in to see a first-class 
play of the average length is on his way back to China 
in a coflin or box with his cue neatly folded around 
him for a burial robe, long before the last act of the 
drama is reached. So, too, the star actors frequently 
die before they have time to finish the play. I don't 
know that any American has ever had the patience 
to wait for the denouement of a Chinese drama, but 
to the saffron-skinned, horse-hair-surmounted and 
slanting-eyed citizen of San Francisco, his theatre is a 
place next in importance to the Joss House or temple, 
and when he once buys his season ticket for a show, he 
sticks to it with a pertinacity that would put an ordi- 
nary glue or cement advertisement to the blush. It is 
the same, too, when they patronize a theatre in which the 

(343) 



344 CHINESE AND JAPANESE THEATRICALS. 

surroundings and language are English ; once in their 
seats, they stay — forgetting even to go out between 
the acts for an opera-glass or a bottle of pop. 

But to return to the Chinese theatre. Its interior 
differs very little from the interior of the places of 
amusement frequented by his American brother. The 
general contour and arrangement of the auditorium is 
pretty much the same. The men sit together on 
benches partitioned off into single seats in the lower 
portion of the house, or pit, with their little round 
hats on, and their pipes or cigars in their mouths ; the 
ladies, who are not allowed into the male portion of the 
auditorium, have galleries for themselves whence they 
look down upon the actions of their male friends be- 
low. Everywhere except on the stage quiet and the 
utmost serenity prevail, no person in the audience 
moving a hand, raising a foot, or opening a lip, even 
when the villain is cut into ribbons by the Sunday- 
school hero ; and at no stage of the performance does 
the slightest manifestation of delight or disapproba- 
tion come from the patient and enduring on-looker. 
In this respect John Chinamen has neglected to take 
a lesson from his American cousin, or to acquire the 
character of the how T ling short-haired gentlemen who 
apotheosize Dennis Kearney and think there is no better 
worshipping place in the world than " the sand lots." 
The largest Chinese theatre in San Francisco is on 
Washington Street and was opened in 1879. Its 
auditorium is almost a copy of the best theatres 
of the large cities of the country. Its audience 
is seated and separated in the manner I have de- 
scribed, and their behavior is, in accordance with 
the custom of their country, quiet and respectful. 
The stage of the theatre, though, is a curiosity. 
There is no curtain, and but one scene that never 



CHINESE AND JAPANESE THEATRICALS. 345 

changes. On the side of the stage — or prosce- 
nium — long slips of colored paper with Chinese 
characters on them are huiisr — the adages and axioms 
of what is familiarly known as tea-chest literature — 
and numerous multi-colored lanterns shed their radi- 
ance around the place. At the back of the stage sit 
several musicians with tom-toms, cymbals, fiddles, and 
divers other instruments all of wonderful construction 
and with frightful capacity for setting anybody but a 
Chinaman crazy. These musicians seem to be as im- 
portant elements in the action and meaning of the 
play as the actors themselves are. As soon as the per- 
formance begins they immediately tune up, and from that 
on until the show is over they never give the audience 
or the music a single rest. The play usually begins at 
five o'clock in the afternoon and continues until two 
the following morning', so it will be readilv understood 
that the Chinese musician has a pretty wide scope for 
his genius, while the Chinese audience must be more 
than mortal to stand both the music and the actors for 
some hours at a stretch. The actors make themselves 
as hideous as possible, employing wigs and long beards 
with plenty of paint to disguise themselves. They 
stalk and stamp around in a manner highly suggestive 
of the English-speaking " scene-eater," and there is 
a great deal of stabbing and killing — thunder and 
blood, so to speak — which is wasted, as the audience 
does not seem to rise to the enthusiasm of the occa- 
sion and there are no " gallery gods" to help bring 
the house down. While the actors are shouting loud- 
est, the musicians, all of whom seem to be playing 
different tunes, are working hardest and the din and 
discord of a supremely grand moment of Chinese 
tragedy are something horrible to hear and simply 
torturesome to endure. Boys or young men play the 



346 CHINESE AND JAPANESE THEATRICALS. 

female parts as was the custom on the English stage 
in the time of Elizabeth. There is no levity in the 
performance, no prancing or dancing, nothing but the 
utmost severity and solemnity, which leaves me in 
doubt whether the Chinese go to the theatre to be 
amused or are compelled by some law of their country 
or religion to do so. 

The property-room of a Chinese theatre is a very 
queer concern, filled up with lanterns, old clothes, 
spears, etc., but the most extraordinary feature of the 
place is the quantity of eatables that find their way 
into the room and down the throats of the performers. 
That most delicious morsel, roast pig, of whose dis- 
covery by the Celestials Charles Lamb has written so 
charmingly, occupies a prominent place on the board, 
and is frequently attacked by the actors, who appear 
to come off the stage as hungry as six-day go-as-you- 
please pedestrians are when they leave the track. 
When the Chinese actor is not acting or putting on his 
costume you may depend upon it that he is eating. 
This histrionic peculiarity is strongly marked among 
the descendants of Ho-Fi, who if they are not good 
tragedians have first-class appetites and stomachs 
whose capacity is not measured by three meagre meals 
a day. 

A correspondent writing from Yokohama gives an 
idea of the amusements served up in the Japanese 
capital by its enterprising theatrical managers. The 
Japanese, says this writer, are a theatre-going people, 
and their taste is catered unto continually. Whether 
the managers accumulate riches I know not, but theat- 
rical amusements are provided for the wants and means 
of all classes. At the first-class establishment is a 
revolving stage, upon which is placed the scenery and 
properties devoted to the play on the boards. The 



CHINESE AND JAPANESE THEATRICALS. 347 

orchestra occupy the left-hand side of the stage, or 
rather they are placed in an elevated pen at the left of 
the stage floor. The revolving part of the business is 
about fifteen feet from the foot-lights, the intervening 
space being permanent. The wings are not elaborate, 
and not much machinery is employed to work up 
effects. The inevitable trap is utilized on this stage, 
it being the only place that boasts of the improve- 
ment. The actors at this theatre are of the first rank, 
and their dresses are gorgeous j n the extreme. " Re- 
gardless of expense " must be their motto ; and here 
are produced all the famous plays known to the na- 
tives, they being all of national significance. 

The Japanese are patriotic in their instincts, and do 
not run after strange representations with which to 
amuse themselves. Everything on the board is in- 
tensely Japanese — descriptive of their fables and 
romances, as well as reproducing actual episodes in 
the history of the empire. To the stranger who is 
alien to the language their plays are first-class panto- 
mimes only, though one can but accord the actors rare 
dramatic ability. I must say, however, that the style 
affected in their stage step is something too awfully 
too too for anything. The poetry of motion is a dif- 
ferent affair here from what is considered the correct 
thing elsewhere. Keene or Billy Emerson could, 
either of them, get a new kink in a stage walk if they 
could study Japanese methods a while. It costs 
thirty cents to enter the temples of dramatic art — that 
is, to be in the place for the upper tendom, the gal- 
lery — or dress circle, it may be called — which runs 
on both sides of the house, as well as on the end front- 
ing the stage. This gallery is about five feet wide, 
and is entered from the passage-way running along it 
through openings in the partition without doors. It 



CHINESE AND JAPANESE THEATBICALS. 349 

is divided into spaces of live feet or more by placing a 
round pieee of limber of say two inches in diameter 
from the gallery front and the back of it. The front 
is elevated above the floor about fifteen inches only, 
as the occupants are expected to sit upon their haunches 
on the matted floor. Between acts tea is served to 
any who will buy, and smoking is allowed all over the 
house during the play. The body of the theatre is 
supplied with benches without backs for the accommo- 
dation of the audience. 

There is no sharp practice in the way of reserved 
seats in Japanese theatres. Neither is there necessity 
to go outside for a clove or browned coffee. When 
once seated you are at your ease, not having to draw 
yourself up for any other fellow. The second-grade 
places are of a cheaper order, where one can sit on the 
floor, there being no seats, or stand upon the ground, 
there being no floor, the earth doing duty in that re- 
gard. One cent and a half and two cents and a half 
give the grades of the establishments. They are all, 
best as well as inferior, lighted with the domestic-made 
candle, and when the original dips of our grand- 
mothers are remembered, the kind of a candle used is 
described. The candles smoke as well as the audience. 
There is a large stock of amusement to be had in a 
one and a half cent concern, that is, if you are not 
particular about the aesthetic nature of the surround- 
ings, and do not carry with you a cultivated musical 
ear. These places do not carry on their pay-roll any 
large number of star actors, or a numerous stock 
company, and they do not devote much time to the 
rehearsal of parts, as it is the duty of the prompter to 
flit from one actor to another with the lines of the dia- 
logue in one hand, and in the other a stiff paper lan- 
tern. Bending low, he reads in a tone readily caught 



350 CHINESE AND JAPANESE THEATRICALS. 

by the actor the lines, which are duly repeated, while 
the prompter "is doing his duty" by the next one. 
It is one of the most interesting features of a play, 
this constant flitting of the prompter. If any fellow 
about the establishment earns his pay, the prompter is 
the man. 

There are very many side-shows to attract the pleas- 
ure-seeker, all of them being within the compass of 
the humblest, the charge being from one-half cent to 
one and one-half cents. In these places are witnessed 
juggling tricks of real merit, and top-spinning that is 
a bewilderment to the looker-on. Tops of all sizes 
are spun with the aid of a string, and made to revolve 
by the action of the hands only. An expert will 
throw his top from him, and by the action of the string 
as it unwinds draw it back so that it is caught in his 
hand — of course, without it having touched the 
ground. An unopened fan is then taken in the other 
hand, and the top is placed upon one of its sides and 
spun along it. Then the fan is opened, and the top 
continues to spin along its edge to its farther side, and 
along it until the hand is reached, when up it runs on 
the arm to the shoulder, and across the back and down 
the other arm, on to the fan again. Then it will be 
tossed into the air and. caught upon one of the corners 
of the opened fan, from which it is tossed again and 
again into the air and caught as it descends. It is 
wonderful the way they can manipulate a top. I have 
seen them take a large-sized one, having a spindle by 
which it was made to rotate, and by simply placing the 
spindle between the palms of the hands, and drawing 
one hand back while advancing the other a number of 
times it attained sufficient velocity, when it was taken 
from the table on which it was spinning and a turn taken 
around the spindle with a string that was pendant from 



CHINESE AND JAPANESE THEATRICALS. 



351 



a paper lantern hanging high up against the ceiling of 
the building. Up went the top into the lantern, which 
opened into the shape of an umbrella, and a wealth of 
festoons of bright-colored tissue paper descended from 




it all about the stage. Those who witnessed Little 
All Right and the troupe of Japanese acrobats that ex- 
hibited their tricks years ago in the United States will 
remember the many surprising feats done by them. 



352 CHINESE AND JAPANESE THEATRICALS. 

What they paid $1 for seeing can be witnessed in 
Yokohama in the open air for just what one is pleased 
to contribute, or under cover for from one to three 
cents. 




MINNIE MADDERN. 

There are no manifestations of applause, no cat-calls 
or signs of impatience. In the places visited by even 
the poorest, where the accommodations are of the 
rudest, perfect order is observed, and every one seems 
to be possessed of a patient quietness that is amazing. 
They exhibit a deference for the comfort of their fel- 
lows that is worthy of imitation. One great reason, 
perhaps, that the people are so gentle and accom- 
modating, one to the other, may be found iu their 
complete sobriety. No exhibition of drunken rowdy- 
ism is to be seen, and yet the entire people, women as 
well as men, drink of the national beverage, " sake," 
a liquor distilled from rice. As there is no " taran- 
tula juice" in its composition, its inebriating quality 
is rather mild. Its effect upon the brain is not lasting, 
neither is it injurious. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



OPERA AND OPERA SINGERS. 



Ferdinand Pal mo, who died in New York in Sep- 
tember, 1869, as poor as the proverbial church 
mouse, was the father of Italian opera in this country. 
He was born in Naples in 1785 and came to America 
when twenty-five years old, settling in Richmond, Vir- 
ginia. After remaining there six years he moved to 
New York, but not proving successful in a business 
.venture returned to Virginia. After paying two visits 
to Europe he again tried New York and built a cafe, 
which he run until 1835 when he opened a saloon cham- 
ber, which was afterwards converted by him into 
Palmo's Opera House, and in which Italian opera was 
for the first time presented to the American people 
on February 2, 1844. The opening opera was " II 
Puritani," and during the season the best operas of 
the day were produced. The venture, however, did 
not prove a financial success. Palmo was reduced to 
poverty. With the assistance of friends he opened a 
small hotel, and after nine months became cook for a 
Broadway restaurant " where," says a writer, " he 
might often have been seen wearing his white apron and 
square cap and engaged in preparing the delectable 
dishes for which that establishment was noted." The 
death of his employer threw Palmo out of work and 
reduced him to straitened circumstances. As he 
was too old to do anything, members of the dramatic 
and musical professions met and organized a Palmo 
23 (353) 



354 OPERA AND OPERA SINGERS. 

Fund, each person in the organization agreeing to pay 
$13 per year toward the old man's relief, and he lived 
comfortably on this fund until the day of his death. 
It is a curious fact that no musical or theatrical ce- 
lebrities attended his funeral. 

Forty years have effected a great change in the taste 
of the people of the United States. Italian opera 
now is one of the best paying things in the musical or 
dramatic market. Announce a season of grand opera 
in any city, and from that time on until the date of 
opening the manager of the theatre in which the sea- 
son is to be held will be bothered by applicants for 
places. Double and treble the ordinary price of ad- 
mission is asked, but that makes no difference ; every- 
body seems desirous of patronizing Italian opera, and 
the extra price is paid without grumbling. These high 
prices of admission must be paid because it costs a vast 
amount of money to run Italian opera, transporting 
large companies long distances, paying immense sala- 
ries, and shouldering the enormous expenses of equip- 
ping an opera organization and mounting the pieces. 

It is a great sight to see an opera company travel- 
ing. The principal singers must have their sleeping- 
cars and dining coaches, those beneath them put up 
with sleeping berths merely, while the members of the 
chorus are crowded like emigrants into an ordinary 
coach, from out which roll odors of fried garlic and 
Italian sausage. When their destination is reached 
the prima donne find carriages in waiting to drive 
them to the best hotel in the place. The secondary 
artists may also have carriages, but they go to minor 
hotels, while the chorus people are left to themselves 
to seek cheap boarding-houses and do the best they 
can. Wagon loads of trunks follow the carriages and 
wagon loads go to the theatre. Sometimes there is 



OPERA AND OFEBA SINGERS. 355 

scenery. For instance, Mapleson always carries the 
scenery for "Aida," even to big cities where there are 
first-class theatres. Hundreds of pieces of baggage 
are left at the hotels, and hundreds at the theatre. 
Immediately the troupe arrives the principal artists fall 
into the hands of the interviewer, and as the tenor and 
the prima donna and the others, too, are tired, the news- 
paper man gets very little to write about unless he runs 
across such a good fellow as Campanini, or happens to 
meet Charles Mapleson, if it is Her Majesty's Com- 
pany. 

Then on the following morning comes the rehearsal. 
The triumph is the usual sequel. All the young ladies 
are immediately " mashed" on the tenor, and would 
willingly follow the example of some New York 
beauties, who went as a committee of the whole behind 
the scenes one night to place a wreath of bay leaves 
on the head of their favorite warbler, only they have 
amateur tenors of their own by their sides who might 
not relish such a display of their appreciation of good 
music. 

While her Majesty's Opera Company was having a 
season at the Academy of Music, New York, two 
years ago, a newspaper man interviewed Col. Maple- 
son, the impresario, and took a look at the interior of 
the establishment, exploring many of its mysteries. 
In the course of the conversation he asked : — - 

" How many rehearsals do you give a new opera? " 

"Ah, now lean tell you something that the public 
know nothing of. A man of the crutch-and-toothpick 
school, after I've put on, let me say 'Aida' at a cost of 
$10,000, will come to me and say, 'Aw, I've seen 
"Aida" twice; when are you going to give us some- 
thing new ? ' And the poor manager has to smile and 
mount something equivalent to it immediately. Ke^ 



356 



OPERA AND OPERA SINGERS. 




hearsals ! Par example. This is the sixth full-baud 
rehearsal for the orchestra alone — drilling for two 
and three hours — to get the light and shade of the 



OPERA AND OPERA SINGERS. 357 

pianissimo and forte. After some more band rehear- 
sals — the slight alterations in the score by Arditi kept 
four copyists at work all last night and until day- 
break — the principal artists rehearse about twenty 
times with the piano ; then comes a full rehearsal with 
band, the artists seated all around the stage on chairs ; 
then the property-man has to have his rehearsal. The 
carpenters now come in for their rehearsals, with 
scene framers, etc. Then comes the first stage re- 
hearsal, with everybody without the scenery, and then 
another with the scenery ; later on again with the 
properties and the business, and then it is fit for public 
representation. Then a languid swell will tell me he 
has seen the opera twice, and will want to know when 
I am going to give something new." 

An attendant here brought the colonel his letters, 
over which he hastily glanced. 

st Here is a letter from the Prince of Wales," he 
exclaimed, showing me the note, dated Hotel Bristol, 
Paris, October 22d. " It's in reference to his omni- 
bus box at Her Majesty's. While I am free for a 
moment from my den, just take a tour of this place. 
I'll act as guide, philosopher and friend. I'd like you 
to see what!s going on, and to let the public know 
what a herculean task it is to run old operas, let alone 
producing new ones." 

We strode across the stage and plunged into a cav- 
ernous passage, to emerge on a staircase and into a 
property-room. 

"What dummy is this?" demanded the colonel, 
administering a kick to the decapitated form of a bux- 
omly-proportioned female, " and where's the head? " 

It is the st Rigoletto " corpse. 

We took a peep into the armory, which, from its 
aroma of oil, painfully reminded me of my ocean ex- 



358 OPERA AND OPERA SINGERS. 

perience. Here the " Talismano "helmets, Oriental 
of design; here the head-pieces worn in the " Puri- 
tani," reminding one of Cromwell's crop-eared knaves ; 
here the Italian so well known in " Trovatore." 
Morions and breastplates and shields were here, and 
matchlocks of ancient pattern, with guns of the Martini- 
Henry design. 

" Do you see these guns? " suddenly exclaimed the 
colonel. " I bought four hundred of them for five 
shillings a piece at an auction. They had been sold 
by an English firm to the French government during 
the Franco-Prussian war at a fabulous price. One 
night, at Dublin, we were doing * Der Freischutz,' 
and poor Titjens was standing at the wing. One of 
these guns was loaded with a little powder rammed 
down by a piece of paper only. When fired, the lock 
blew off, and a piece of it went right through Titjens's 
dress, sticking in the wall behind her. What chance 
had the French with such weapons in their hands? " 

From the armory we proceeded to the barber shop, 
where " Migrion," "Aida," "Traviata," and " Lucia" 
wigs, curls, moustaches and beards showed grizzly on 
shelves. A French barber was engaged in titifying 
Campanini's wig for " Linda," and he expatiated on 
its wonderful approach to nature with all the chic of 
his very expressive mother tongue. 

In one of the wardrobes were the costumes for half 
a dozen operas, each opera folded away and labelled. 
Colonel Mapleson has about two thousand costumes 
with him, and his packing-cases, each the size of a 
small apartment, number nearly one hundred. We 
found the Nilsson Hall full of newly painted scenery, 
and the flies thronged with carpenters. The scene 
painter's room was devoted to "Aida," while the 
stage-man's room was choked full of flotsam and jet- 



OPERA AND OPERA SINGERS. 359 

sam, from the lamp of a Vestal Virgin to the statuette 




PATTI. 



of Cupid in puribus naturalibus, and from a loaded 
pistol to a roleau of stage gold . 

" The stage brass band is rehearsing in the lower 



360 OPERA AND OPERA SINGERS. 

regions, the principal artistes doing ' Trovatore ' in 
the first saloon, the^ chorus rehearsing ' Marta ' in the 
second saloon, the orchestra on their own ground 
rehearsing 'Aida,' the ballet at work in a large room, 
and a set of coryphees blazing away in a distant 
corner. Listen ! " 

In the first saloon were the " Trovatore" party, 
lounging around a piano, presided at by Bisaccia, the 
accompanist to the company. Mile. Adini, nee Chap- 
man, the Leonora, was warbling right under the mous- 
tache of her husband, Aramburo, the tenor who was 
frantic because Mapleson refused £800 to release him 
from his engagement ; while Del Puente was slapping 
his leg vigorously with his walking-cane, as he occasion- 
ally burst in with a superb note in harmony with the 
score. Madame Lablache leant with her elbows upon 
the bar, and knowing every square inch of a role she 
had performed from St. Petersburg to Gotham, turned 
from the perusal of a newspaper at the right moment 
in order to discharge the electricity of her Azucena, 
while her daughter, who is studying for the operatic 
stage, attended en amateur, a toy black-and-tan ter- 
rier in her arms. Having listened to a delicious mor- 
ceau from " II Trovatore," we ascended to saloon No. 
2, from whence a Niagara of melody was grandly 
thundering. Here we found the chorus, numbering 
about eighty, seated hatted and bonneted, with Signor 
Rialp presiding at the pianoforte. The rehearsal was 
4 'Marta." After visiting a dozen different depart- 
ments, every one of which is presided over by a vigi- 
lant chief, we again found ourselves on the stage. 

"Now," exclaimed the colonel, "you have some 
little idea of what I have to look after, and yet when I 
produce a new opera, a crutch-and-toothpick fellow 
will coolly ask me, after seeing it twice, when I am 



OPERA AND OPERA SINGERS. 



361 



going to give something 'new.' Do you know that 
every one in that chorus you have just seen is an 
Italian, and selected after considerable trouble and 




*&^*a : : : 



GERSTER. 



great expense? Do you know what it costs me to 
operatically rig up each member of that chorus? 
"I cannot tell." 



362 OPERA AND OPERA SINGERS. 

" Well, it costs me $600, and it cost me $15,000 to 
bring the troupe across the Atlantic. Do you know 
what it costs me every time I ring up my curtain? 
Two thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, and 
then add the weekly hotel bills, $2,200. I am doing 
opera at Her Majesty's at this moment. Here's the 
bill " — handing me the programme of Her Majesty's — 
" doing the same operas as here, and that in order to 
do them here, I am obliged to get a second set of 
everything, from a drinking-cup to a bootlace, and this 
costs me £120,000 before I started at all, as this is a 
distinct and separate undertaking." 

" How many operas does your repertoire include?" 
" Thirty. I have thirty with me, and I can play 
any one of them . Another element I have to deal with is 
the superstition, or whatever you like to call it, of 
some of my people. They won't go into any room in 
a hotel with the number thirteen, and an artist won't 
make his or her debut on the 13th ; it is considered 
unlucky. I once recollect having engaged Mmc. 
Grisi and Signor Mario for a tour in England, com- 
mencing the 13th of September. On sending them the 
programme, Mme. Grisi' s attention was drawn to the 
' thirteenth.' She thereupon wrote a very kind letter 
stating that nothing could induce her to appear on the 
' thirteenth ; ' but to show there was nothing mean 
about her, she would rather commence it on the 
' twelfth,' although her pay was to commence on the 
'thirteenth-' I amended her programme and com 
menced on the ' twelfth,' but as that date happened to 
be a Friday it was again returned to me with a most 
amiable letter, which I still preserve, in which she 
stated again that there was nothing mean about the al- 
teration, as she would be the only loser; she there- 
fore desired me to commence it on the * eleventh,' 



OPERA AND OPERA SINGERS. 3()3 

when both she and Siguor Mario would sing without 
salary until the proper date of the commencement of 
the contract. One of the artists went to Tiffany's the 
other day to purchase a bangle. The price was $13. 
' Won't you take less? ' 'No.' And would you be- 
lieve it, she paid $14 sooner than pay $13." 

We regained the managerial sanctum. 

" Here is more of it," cried the impresario, " a 
letter from Campanini. I'll read it to you. ' Dear 
Mr. Mapleson : I am very ill, and cannot possibly sing 
to-night unless you send me — some tickets for family 
circle, balcony, parquette, and general circle. Cam- 
panini.' " 

Here the colonel was summoned to hear a young 
lady sing — an amateur who aspired to the vocal 
majesty of grand opera. Upon his return, after the 
lapse of a few minutes, I asked : — 

" What opera pays the best, colonel? " 

" Oh, there are a dozen trumps." 

" Is not * Carmen ' one of them? " 

"Yes, 'Carmen' has been one of my best suc- 
cesses." 

In conclusion, Colonel Mapleson said : — 

" I am nervous as to the future, as nearly every 
coming artist has the misfortune to be American." 

" Misfortune, colonel? " 

" Yes. I use the word advisedly. Albani, Val- 
leria, Adini, Van Zandt and Durand, one of the best 
dramatic prima donne on the stage, who, by the way, 
has gone to sing at the Grand Opera in Paris instead 
of'coming here, and Emma Novada, a new prima — 
Candidus, the tenor, too ; all the coming talent is 
American." 

The salaries paid prima donne are very high. As 
far back as 1870, Mme. Patti was paid $50,000 a year, 



364 OPERA AND OPERA SINGERS. 

besides being given numerous presents by the Emperor 
of Eussia. Last winter Mr. Henry E. Abbey paid 
Mme. Patti at the rate of eight times the imperial sal- 
ary, giving the diva $4,000 for each concert she sang 
in, and she sang two in each week. Albani was paid at 
the same rate as Patti in Russia. Nilsson, before her 
retirement, got $1,000 a night in the provinces. Now, 
that she is to return to the stage and come to America, 
she will be paid probably as handsomely as Patti was. 
Nearly all the foreign singers and artists have London 
agents through whom American impresarios carry on 
their negotiations. Gye is one of these agents and H. 
C. Jarrett, of London, who accompanied Bernhardt, 
as her agent, and who represents Nilsson, is another. 
Singers and dramatic people, too, are fond of dia- 
monds. They have thousands of dollars' worth of 
them ; still they believe in investing in them because 
they represent so much value in such little space. Sara 
Bernhardt had a wonderful wealth of these precious 
stones, and Neilson was well provided with them. B. 
Spyer, the St. Louis diamond merchant, with whom 
theatrical and operatic people deal almost exclusively, 
and who enjoys the patronage of nearly all foreign 
artists who visit this country, told me a very funny 
story about the first diamond he sold Christine Nils- 
son. He had a splendid stone worth $4,000, and tak- 
ing it with him he went up to the Lindell Hotel, and 
knocking at Nilsson' s door was told to come in. He 
opened the door and there on a sofa the great songs- 
stress was reclining covered with an old calico gown. 
He showed her the stone, but she did not want to buy 
it and would not. Nilsson having left the room for a 
while, Mr. Spyer approached the dressing-maid, who 
was an old lady, and showing her a handsome diamond- 
ring told her he would give it to her if she used her 



OPERA AND OPERA SINGERS. 365 

influence to induce her mistress to buy the $4,000 dia- 
mond. She said she would, and while they were talk- 
ing in walked a gray-haired old gentleman in common 
clothes who looked like a servant, and whom Mr. 
Spyer engaged in conversation. He told the old man 
of his scheme with the dressing-maid, when the latter 
said, " Tut, tut, she can do nothing for you ; she's got 
no influence." 

" Then can you do anything?" Mr. Spyer asked. 
" I'll make it all right if you help me to sell the 
Madame that stone-" 

" Well," said the old gentleman, " I want a pair of 
ear-rings for my daughters, who are in England." 

"All right " was the diamond broker's answer ; " you 
use your influence and if I make the sale you shall 
have the ear-rin^s." 

The old gentleman said he would do what he could. 
Mr. Spyer sold the diamond to Nilsson and in a few 
days the old gentleman walked into his store and after 
looking ovef the stock selected a $650 pair of ear-rings. 
Spyer was surprised, but his surprise was greater 
when he learned that the person he had taken for a 
servant was none other than H. C. Jarrett, then and 
now Nilsson's confidential agent. 

Mr. Spyer told me another story which I may as 
well bring in here, of how he sold a ring to Adelaide 
Neilson for $3,000. Mr. Lee, who was then Neilson's 
husband, was conducting the negotiations, and told 
Mr. Spyer that he was going to buy some property in 
Chicago, and would receive a telegram in regard to it, 
to know whether his offer for the property had been 
accepted or rejected. If he did not receive a tele- 
gram by twelve o'clock noon the following day, he 
would buy the ring. At noon next day Mr. Spyer was 
at the Southern Hotel, where Mr. Lee and his wife were 



366 OPERA AND OPERA SINGERS. 

stopping. He asked the clerk if he had seen Mr. Lee 
around the rotunda, and the clerk answered no, that 
he himself was looking for Mr. Lee, as he had a tele- 
gram for him. 

" Well now, I'll tell you what to do — " mention- 
ing his first name, for the diamond merchant knew the 
clerk, " you'll oblige me very much and do me a great 
favor if you'll keep that telegram down here until I 
go up stairs and see Lee." 

The clerk agreed ; Mr. Spyer went up stairs and sold 
his diamond ring. Himself and Mr. Lee walked down 
the stairs to get a drink. The clerk called Mr. Lee, 
handed him the telegram and he opened and read it. 

" By Jove, Barney," he said, holding out the tele- 
gram, "if I'd gotten this ten minutes sooner I 
wouldn't have bought that ring." 

" Well, I'm glad you didn't get it," Mr. Spyer re- 
sponded. " Let's go and have some Apollinarius." 

One morning during that same week Mr. Spyer was 
sitting in the store when Neilson came in alone and 
bought a diamond ring for $175, paid for it and told 
the merchant to say nothing to Philip about it. There 
was nothing so very extraordinary in this ; but when 
Mr. Lee came in an hour afterwards and picked out a 
ring about the same value and paying for it enjoined 
Mr. Spyer to say nothing to Adelaide about it, he was 
surprised at the remarkableness of the coincidence. 
He never heard anything more about either of the 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



THE MINSTREL BOYS. 



The idea of negro minstrelsy in its present shape 
originated forty years ago with Dan Emmett, Frank 
Brower, Billy Whitlock and Dick Pel ham . This happy 
quartette organized the Virginia Serenaders in 1841, 
giving their first performance on December 30th. An 
idea of the "first part" furnished by that combination 
was given last season, when Dan Emmett himself ap- 
peared with three others in an act in which the old 
jaw-bone figured, and the other instruments were 
banjo, tambourine and fiddle. Fitly years before the 
time of the Virginia Serenaders a Mr. Grawpner is 
said to have blacked up at the old Federal Street 
Theatre, in Boston, where he sang an Ethiopian song 
in character. The first of the negro melodies that 
have been preserved is " Back Side of Albany Stands 
Lake Champlain." It was sung by Pot-Pie Herbert, 
a Western actor who Nourished long before the days of 
"Jim Crow," Kice, or Daddy Rice, as they called 
him. Herbert's song was as follows : — 

Back side Albany stan' Lake Champlain, 

Little pond half full o' water; 
Platteburg dar too, close 'pon de main, 

Town small, he grow bigger herearter. 

On Lake Champlain Uncle Sam set he boat 

An' Massa McDonough he sail 'em; 
While General Macomb make Platteburg he home 

Wid de army whose courage nebber fail 'em, 

. (367) 



368 THE MINSTREL BOYS. 

Daddy Kice was employed in Ludlow & Smith's 
Southern theatre as property-man, lamp-lighter, stage 
carpenter, etc., and he made no reputation until he 
began jumping Jim Crow, in Louisville, Kentucky, in 
1829, after which he became famous and made a for- 
tune by singing his song in this country and England. 
The original " Jim (/row," with the walk and dress, 
were copied from an old Louisville negro, and ran along 
regardless of rhythm in this manner : — 

I went down to creek, I went clown a fishing, 
I axed the old miller to gim me chaw tobacker 
To treat old Aunt Hanner. 

Chorus. First on de heel tap, den on de toe, 

Ebery time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow. 

I goes down to de branch to pester old miller, 

I wants a little light wood ; . 

I belongs to Capt. Hawkins and don't care a d — n. 

Chorus. First on de heel tap, etc. 

George Nichols, a circus clown, claims to have been 
the first negro minstrel, and some award this distinc- 
tion to George Washington Dixon, who disputes the 
authorship of " Zip Coon" with Nichols, who first 
sang* 'Clare De Kitchen," which he arranged from 
hearing it sung by negroes on the Mississippi. Bill 
Keller, a low comedian, was the original " Coal Black 
Rose," in 1830, John Clements having composed the 
music. Barney Burns, a job actor and low comedian, 
first sang " My Long Tail Blue," and " Such a Get- 
ting up Stairs," written and composed by Joe Black- 
burn. These were all about Daddy Rice's time, and 
nearly all the songs of the day were constructed in the 
style of " Jim Crow." They were taken from hearing 
the Southern darkies singing in. the evenings on their 
plantations. 



THE MINSTREL BOYS. 369 

In the year following the organization of the Virginia 
Serenaders the original Christy Minstrels were organ- 
ized by E. P. Christy, in Buffalo. The troupe con- 
sisted of E. P. Christy, Geo. Christy (whose real name 
was Harrington), L. Durand and T. Vaughn. They 
first called themselves the Virginia Minstrels, but 
changed to Christy Minstrels in a short time, when 
Enon Dickerson and Zeke Bakers joined them. The 
party continued to give concerts up to July, 1850, when 
E. P. Christy died and was buried in Greenwood, 
George Christy had withdrawn in October, 1853, owing 
to some dispute between himself and E. P. His 
salary during the two years and six months pre- 
ceding the withdrawal amounted to $19,680. The 
troupe gave two thousand seven hundred and ninety- 
two concerts during its existence, took in $317,- 
589.30, paid out $156,715.70, and had a profit 
left of $160,873.60. The profits of the first year did 
not exceed $300. Companies were now springing up 
everywhere, and so great was the rage for ministrelsy 
that the troupes were obliged to give morning concerts. 
The entertainment has been one of our public amuse- 
ments ever since, and a good company of burnt cork 
artists can command a good house anywhere. Follow- 
ing the spirit of enterprise of the age and the tendency 
to gigantic proportions in everything, minstrelsy has 
developed into Mastodon Megatherion and other 
mammoth organizations. End men by the dozens, song 
and dance men by the scores and no less than forty 
("count 'era ") artists now amuse the public that was 
satisfied with four in '41. By the way it was in this 
year on July 4th, that bones were first played before an 
audience, the player being Frank Brower of the Vir- 
ginia Serenaders. 

George Christy, who was the most celebrated Ethio- 



370 



THE MINSTREL BOYS. 



pian performer the world knew in those days was 
born in Palmyra, State of New York, November 3, 
1827. He was sent to school at an early age, and 
although he excelled in all the branches of education 




warn 

GEORGE CHRISTY. 



peculiar to boys of his age, after school hours the 
master often found him at the head of a party of boys 
whom he had assembled together for the purpose of 
giving theatrical entertainments, or ? as they called it, 



THE MINSTREL HOYS. 371 

a show. George was, as he ever has been, the very 
head and front of this species of amusement ; and 
subsequently, under the auspices of E. P. Christy, 
made his debut as Julius, the bone-player, in the 
spring of 1839, and afterwards attained to the very 
first rank in his profession. He survived his name- 
sake many years. 

The only fault to be found with the minstrelsy of the 
present day is the coarseness that pervades many of the 
sketches and crops out in the songs and funny sayings. 
The old-time ne<>TO character has been sunk out of 
sight and the vulgarity of the gamin has taken the 
place of the innocent comicalities that were in vogue 
forty years ago. It is true that the negro character 
has undergone a change and that the black man now 
vies with his white brother in everything that is low 
and vicious ; but the criticism still holds good that 
negro minstrelsy is not what it was or what it ought to 
be, and that no matter how grand its proportions 
may be made by enterprising managers the many 
features that make it objectionable to fastidious people 
must be pruned offbefore it can be said to be deserving 
that full recognition which the public always accords to 
whatever is good in the amusement line. 

The negro minstrel is an institution entirely outside 
of the pale of commonplace people. He talks differ- 
ently from other people, acts differently, dresses 
differently. A " gang of nigger singers " can be 
identified three blocks away by an ordinary observer 
of human nature. They have a fondness for high and 
shining silk hats that are reflected in the glaze of their 
patent-leather, low-quarter shoes every time they pull 
up their light trousers to look at their red or clocked 
silk stockings. Their clothes are of a minstrelsy cut, 
and like the party who came to town with rings on her 



372 THE MINSTREL BOYS. 

fingers and rings on her toes, they must have their 
fingers covered with amethysts or cluster-diamond 
ornaments, and they rarely ever fail to display a 
"spark" in their gorgeous shirt fronts. They are 
" mashers " of the most pronounced type on the stage 
and off, and just as soon as they take possession of a 
small town, it is safe to say that all the feminine 
hearts lying around loose will be corraled within 
twenty- four hours of their arrival. They are as gen- 
erous now as they were years ago, and few of them 
save a cent for the frequently mentioned rainy day. 
The very best of them have died in poverty, and found 
graves only through the charity of friends. Johnny 
Diamond and his partner, Jim Sanford, the former of 
whom helped Barnum in his first steps along the road 
to fortune, both died in the same Philadelphia alms- 
house. They had commanded big salaries, but dressed 
flashily and lived fast, and when the rainy day came 
they had to run for shelter to a public charity. Very 
few performers who die in poverty now are allowed 
to seek any other than the charity of their professional 
brethren. The Benevolent and Protective Order of 
Elks takes care of the unfortunates, assisting them 
generously while living and giving them decent burial 
at their death. 

As I said, the minstelboy is an irresistible " masher." 
His particular weakness is women, with wine often 
only a little behind. He lives at as rapid a rate 
as his salary will allow, and turns night into day by 
«' taking in the town " after the performance. They 
frequently get into scandalous history owing to the 
promiscuousness with which they pick up with 
petticoats, and their amours get them into great 
trouble. Women seem to have a lavish fondness for 
the end-man, and many of them have left husband., 



THE MINSTREL BOYS. 



373 



children, and home to follow the fortunes of a fickle 
minstrel. The story of the Chicago gambler's wife 
who ran off with Billy Arlington is still fresh in the 
minds of the people of the city by the lake, and still 




"YOU ARE THE SORT OF A MAN I LIKE. 



fresher is that of the St. Louis demi-mondaine who 
sold out her house to be always near her " Johnny, '* 
who, I think, was one of the Big Four. 

A mash that created a sensation, though, was one 



374 THE MINSTREL BOYS. 

that developed in a New York Bowery theatre, one 
night, when a young woman elegantly attired jumped 
out of a private box, and embracing a performer who 
was just finishing a banjo solo, shouted in a voice that 
was clear and loud, " You're the sort of a man I like !" 
The audience cheered lustily and the young woman 
accepted the applause with a courtesy, while the ban- 
joist staggered into the wings, too much amazed to be 
flattered. A young man from whose side the lady had 
made her leap upon the stage, succeeded with some 
difficulty in coaxing her back into the box and the 
show went on. The pair had been dining and wining 
together, and the young gentleman had not been as at- 
tentive to his companion as she thought proper. So 
she had chosen the original method of at once re- 
buking and shaming him. She succeeded. He did not 
dare to look at another woman on or off the stage 
again until the curtain fell. 

Those who have never witnessed the rehearsal of a 
minstrel company can have but a very faint idea of the 
amount of worry and vexation to which the manager 
is subjected before he becomes satisfied that the com- 
pany has mastered the work so that it is in a condi- 
tion to present to the public. The scene at a dramatic 
rehearsal is the scene of perfect peace and harmony 
compared with that of a minstrel company. The dif- 
ference is caused by the fact that dramatic performers 
study their lines and business carefully, and have the 
idea constantly before them that they must adhere to 
the text and the author's ideas closely, while minstrels, 
or " nigger singers " as they are called by members of 
the profession, work with only one end in view, and that 
is, to be funny. A minstrel having a speech of a dozen 
lines will make it twenty-five times and never make it 
twice alike. Every time he speaks it he will drop 



THE MINSTREL BOT8. 375 

out something or insert something which the author 
did not intend to be there. The result is that a man- 
ager superintending a rehearsal is in hot water, figura- 
tively, all the time. If he storms and swears at the 
performers, he only makes matters worse, and, there- 
fore while he is inwardly boiling with vexation he must 
retain a calm exterior and appear as smiling as a June 
morning. There have been well authenticated cases 
where minstrel managers have been driven to strong 
drink by the intense strain upon their mental faculties 
occasioned by superintending rehearsals. These cases, 
however, are rare. 

Through the courtesy of Manager J. A. Gulick, I 
had the pleasure, last spring, of witnessing a rehearsal 
of Haverly's Mastodon Minstrels. I took a seat under 
the shadow of the balcony to watch developments, and 
passed ten or fifteen minutes in inspecting the dull, 
dismal aspect of the house. Everything was quiet and 
oppressively sombre. Occasionally a scrub woman 
who was working a broom in the dress circle would 
bark one of her shins against one of the iron chair- 
frames and sit down and howl in a subdued tone, but 
beyond this there was nothing to break the stillness 
until the members of the company began to arrive. 
Presently the orchestra came in and began to tune up 
their instruments to a condition proper for the promul- 
gation of sweet strains, and then the comedians and 
singers came sauntering in on the stage. Apparently, 
the first duty of each and every one of them upon get- 
ting out of the wings, was to execute a shuffle, cock 
his hat over his left eye and swagger off up the stage 
with a satisfied smile. Each having been successfully 
delivered of his matutinal shuffle, and having satisfied 
himself that he hadn't contracted the " string-halt " 
during the night, all seated themselves and awaited the 



376 THE MINSTREL BOYS. 

appearance of the manager. Divested of their burnt 
cork and stage toggery, the company looked more like 
a collection of well-to-do young men in the commer- 
cial walks of life than minstrel performers. All 
looked as if they had passed a comfortable night, and 
had not indulged in those revels which are erroneously 
supposed to be inseparable from the life of a minstrel. 
Consequently I was bound to conclude that they had 
said their prayers at 11 : 30, and at midnight were 
snoring the snores of the innocent and blessed. The 
only member, of the company who looked as if he 
might have gone wrong on the previous night was Frank 
Cushman. His right eye was bloodshot, and he had a 
protuberance on his forehead over the optic such as 
might be raised by the kick of a mule. His condition 
was afterward explained by the fact that in attempting 
to make a " funny fall " in " Uncle Tom's Cabin," on 
the night previous, he had made a miscue and had re- 
ceived a genuine fall, striking on his head. Suspicion 
was therefore allayed, and I became satisfied that Cush- 
man, too, had said his prayers and had gone regularly 
to bed unloaded. 

Promptly at eleven o'clock, the hour set for rehear- 
sal, Manager Gulick arrived and proceeded at once to 
business by delivering an address to the orchestra 
leader : — 

"Now we don't want any break in this first part 
finish to-night. You want to make that first chorus 
very forte and then work it oif gradually very piano. 
Then when they all come on you want a short wait and 
then a crash — see ? ' ' 

The leader nodded to indicate that he saw. 

" Then," resumed Mr. Gulick, " when you hear the 
pistol fired, work in that te urn iddle de te urn ah tiddle 
um tiddle tah — see ? ' ' 



THE MINSTREL BOYS. 377 

The leader again saw, and the manager continued : 

"Then when you come to 'The girl I left behind 

me,' put in la la turn liddlc la la turn liddle ah — see? " 

But without waiting to see whether the leader saw 
or not the manager turned to the company with : 
"Now, boys, get down to business and we'll rehearse 
that first part finish." 

Then there was a rush of the " 40-count 'em" 
down to the foot-lights, and everybody began to talk. 
Each man struck a different subject and a different key 
apparently, and the finish appeared to be so thoroughly 
jumbled up that it seemed an impossible task to 
straighten it out again. But the performance appeared 
to be an adjunct of the rehearsal, for when it was fin- 
ished Mr. Gulick took his seat at the foot-lights, while 
the company arranged itself in the usual semi-circle, 
with E. M. Kay ne, the interlocutor, in the centre. 
More instructions were given by the manager, when a 
young man rushed in and performed the pantomime of 
handing Mr. Kayne a telegram, which the latter pan- 
tomimically opened and calmly announced that he had 
just received news that he had just won the prize of 
$50,000 in the Kentucky State lottery. He didn't 
make as much fuss over it as any other man would over 
finding a half-dollar on the street. The news must 
have pleased him, for he remarked : — 

"Boys, I'm in luck." 

" What is it? " said Billy Eice. 

" Fifty thousand dollar prize," replied Mr. Kayne. 

" What did I tell you? " said Rice. 

" Take us out and treat us," said Cushman 

" Didn't 1 tell you I was a Mascot," said another. 
They all called for lemonade, and Mr. Kayne compro- 
mised the matter by agreeing to take them all to Europe 
on a pleasure trip if they would pack their trunks in 



378 



THE MINSTREL BOYS. 



five minutes. A chorus was then sung aud the trunks 
were announced packed. Jimmy Fox then came 
forward and announced that he was captain of the 
Pinafore. The other members of the company must 




S-g^P 



JIM CROW 



have been looking for him, for they shot him dead with 
a vociferous "bang!" and then proceeded to sing 
" Glory Hallelujah," over his corpse. This brought 
him to life again and he was readmitted to the excur- 



THE MINSTKEE BOYS. 



379 



sion party. One of the vocalists then sang " Old 
Folks at Home," and at its conclusion Mr. Kayne asked 
if there was no one else to whom they wished to say 
" good-by," but all responded, " No, not one." 

" Yes, there is," said Mr. Kayne, and the orchestra 
opened with " The Girl I Left Behind Me." 

The rehearsal was interspersed with very sweet little 
melodies, which redeemed such verses as this : 

Our trunks are packed and our passage is paid, 

Sail o'er the ocean blue ; 
Of the briny wave we're not afraid, 

Sail o'er the ocean blue. 

Then Cushman sang : — 

Oh, fare you well, St. Louis girls, 
Fare you well for awhile ; 
We'll sail away in the month of May 
And come back in July. 

Rice retaliated with : — 

Fare you well, you dandy coons, 
We'll show you something grand ; 
We'll sail away o'er the ocean blue, 
Till we reach the promised land. 

There was nothing strikingly classical about the 
words, but the melody was charming, and covered them 
with a charitable cloak. 

The first part finish having been rehearsed, Manager 
Gulick discovered some flaws in it and ordered it to be 
done over again. On hearing this the man at the bass 
viol looked up piteously at Billy Rice and asked : — 

"Are we going through it again? " 

" Of course," replied Rice; "do you want to rest 
all the time?" 

This question was not answered and the bass viol 
dropped into a seat apparently completely discouraged. 



380 THE MINSTREL BOYS. 

The piece was rehearsed, not once only, but half a 
dozen times, and when it was pronounced all right the 
bass viol gave a si^h of relief that shook the building. 
Several songs were then rehearsed, during which 
everybody was busy. At one side of the stage the 
quartette was singing, Cushman was practising an end 
song, the orchestra was at work on an overture, three 
or four men were brushing up on a farce, two song- 
and-dance men were inventing new steps, and Charley 
Dockstader was reading the Clipper. It was an ex- 
ceedingly lively scene, and there was noise enough to 




" SHOO FLY." 

wake the dead. Vocal and instrumental music fought 
a pitched battle, while the dancers hammered the stage 
with their feet as if by way of applause. A boiler- 
shop is a haven of rest beside a minstrel rehearsal at 
this stage. 

A closing farce was then called and the performers 
were given an opportunity to assault lines. All they 
wanted apparently was the idea, which they pro- 
ceeded to work up to suit themselves regardless of the 



THE MINSTREL BOYS. 



381 



author's language. This probably is what makes a 
negro farce funny. The performers make an effort to 
retain cues, but they insert impromptu speeches into 
the parts as they occur to them. One of the comedians 
repeated a speech of ten lines, as many times, and 
each time he had something new in it. All of them 
left out or added something every time, much to the 
evident annoyance of Manager Gulick, but he said 
nothing. 

The rehearsal lasted nearly two hours without a 
rest, and was as utterly unlike a minstrel performance 
as can well be imagined. There was nothing particu- 
larly amusing in it except its oddity, and yet when it 
was presented with black faces and varied costumes it 
caused roar upon roar of the heartiest laughter, be- 
cause those who saw it then had not seen how the 
performance was constructed. 



CHAPfER XXVII. 



PANTOMIME. 

There are two kinds of clowns famil'ur to people 
who patronize amusements — the clown who juggles 
old jokes in the circus ring, and the clown whose 
only language is that of facial expression, and 
whose grins and grimaces together with his extraordi- 
nary antics and white face are more acceptable to and 
interpretable by childhood than the ancient and petri- 
fied humorisms of his brother laugh-maker of the saw- 
dust circle. There is no circus clown in the world 
could stretch the heart-strings of an audience as far and 
hold them there longer than George L. Fox, the king 
of pantomimic merry-makers. His was a face readable 
as the pages of a book printed in good large type, and 
the wonderful swift changes that came over it were like 
fleecy clouds and sunshine chasing each other across a 
summer sky. Poor Fox, who sent a thrill of joy into 
the hearts of thousands of little folks and caused their 
rosy lips to over-bubble with silvery laughter, his was 
a hard, an undeserved fate — death in a madhouse, 
without a glint of reason to light him on his journey 
across the dark river. He has left no successor more 
worthy of his place than George H. Adams, whose tal- 
ent obtained him the recognition of Adam Forepaugh, 
the showman, with whom he is now in partnership. 
Frazier and clowns of minor merit fill the rest of the 
places, but Adams is at the top of the heap, and may be 
fitly termed the Grimakli of to-day - 

(382) 



PAKTTOMIME. 3$3 

It is pleasant to visit a theatre during the progress 
of a pantomime. The house is filled with old and 
young in equal proportions, or if there is any prepon- 
derance it is on the side of the little folks, who clamber 
up on the backs of chairs and laugh freely and sweetly as 
the birds in the forest sing, every time they cateh sight 
of the chalked head of the clown and the gray tuft 
standing like a turret above poor old Pantaloon's wig. 
And the old people laugh all the heartier because the 
innocent young people have their hearts and mouths 
tilled with joy. The pantomime may be " Humpty 
Dumpty" or "The Magic Flute" or "The Merry 
Miller" — call it by whatever name you will, an 
intense interest is taken in it, and new enjoyment is 
found in every performance. The tricks are the same, 
the mechanical effects identical with those of every 
other pantomime you may have seen, and even the 
specialty sketches that divide the acts of the dumb 
show seem to be of very close kindred with those of 
former attractions of this kind. Still everybody enjoys 
the fun just as many people laugh at the " chestnuts " 
— vulgariter, old jokes — of the man in motley attire, 
who tries to make the patrons of the circus feel happy. 

It makes no difference to the miniature men and 
women who are Humpty Dumpty' s best friends and 
admirers, how the mechanical effects of a pantomime are 
produced. They do not care much to know that the 
pig Humpty Dumpty and Pantaloon stretch across the 
width of the stage in an endeavor to tear it from each 
other, has a rubber body ; that the bricks the clown 
throws at everybody are only paper boxes ; that the 
trick pump is worked from the side scenes with a 
string ; that the clothes which suddenly, and as if by 
some invisible influence, vanish into the sides of houses 
or up through windows have light but strong black 



38-4 PANTOMIME. 

thread, which the little ones cannot see at a distance, at- 
tached to them ; the big policeman is to them a stern 
and gigantic reality ; and it affords them more fan to 
imagine every time Humpty throws or makes a blow at 
anybody, that the stinging sound is a sure indication that 
his aim was well taken — they do not know that the 
sound as of receiving a blow is the result of slapping 
the hands together. All the simple illusions of the 
scene and of the action are to them actual facts, and 
they appear all the more ridiculous and are all the 
more effective on this account. When Humpty 
Dumpty dives through the side of a house, disappear- 
ing behind, there are men in waiting to catch him, and 
when he sits down to read his newspaper and the can- 
dle begins to grow beyond his reach, then falling as he 
attempts to go higher with a sudden bang, and the 
clown comes tumbling down after it as Jill did after 
Jack when they went up the hill for the bucket of 
beer, few of the big or little people know that the can- 
dle runs down through one of the legs of the table and 
is all wood except the waxen bit at the top. All these 
little mysteries have their charms for the years of 
childhood, and in no country are the pleasures of the 
pantomime so fully recognized as in England, where on 
Boxing Night — the 26th of December — children crowd 
the theatres to witness the Christmas pantomime. In 
some theatres here the custom of providing pantomime 
for the Christmas holidays is adhered to, but as there 
are not enough Grimaldis or Foxes or Adamses or 
Fraziers to go around, the supply being very limited, 
we cannot compete with England in this respect. 

As Adams is the only pantomimist who can lay any 
claim to the mantle of George L. Fox — if clowns can 
be said to have mantles — a short biography may not be 
out of place. He is twenty-eight years old, is a native 



PANTOMIME. 385 

of England, and is the eldest son of Charles H. 
Adams, one of the best Pantaloons in the country. 
He comes from a family of circus people, being a de- 
scendant of the famous Cookes, riders and clowns, 
and is a cousin of W. W. Cole, the circus manager. 
He was apprenticed to the manager of Astley's, in 
London, when he was six years of age, and remained 
there eight years. After appearing as clown with a 
circus in Denmark, he came to America, and for sev- 
eral years travelled with different circuses. His first 
appearance as clown in the pantomime was in Brooklyn, 
New York, in 1872, under the management of Tim 
Donnelly, who gave a pantomime every year during the 
Christmas holidays. His father was the stage man- 
ager for Donnelly, and suggested to George the idea of 
playing clown. George refused at first, but finally at 
his father's earnest solicitation decided to go on. He 
made an unmistakable hit, and from that time deserted 
the sawdust arena and adopted the stage. After sev- 
eral successful seasons with Nick Roberts and Tony 
Denier he last season accepted an offer of partnership 
with Adam Forepaugh to run a show under his own 
name. 

In the last Christmas number of the London Graphic 
I found the following excellent article on " Boxing 
Night" as the little folks of London enjoy it: "The 
very first night of anticipated pleasure has come to 
nine-tenths of the little ones who gaze upon the scene 
in silent wonder and astonishment. Imagination in its 
wildest dreams never pictured anything so wonderful as 
this. There have been little theatricals at home, plays 
in the back drawing-room ; some fairy tale has been 
enacted for which kind sisters have supplied the ward- 
robe, whilst mamma has presided over the piano or- 
chestra. It was good fun to crawl across the mimic 



386 PANTOMIME. 

stage in a hearth-rug, pretending to be a wolf or bear, 
and to hear the laughter of kind friends in front ; but 
all that home amusement, the curiosity and contriv- 
ances, the songs and dances were, indeed, child's play 
when compared to a real theatre on Boxing Night. 
What importance is given to the child by being con- 
sidered old enough to sit up so late as this ; what a 
sense of mystery and wonderment to be driven through 
the lighted streets ; to see the decorated shops set out 
with Christmas presents and New Year's gifts ; and to 
behold for the first time, the bright electric light on 
the bridges and embankment ! But this is far better 
than all, and only a very little removed from fairyland. 
How the myriad lights in the great chandeliers glisten 
and. sparkle, and the stage foot-lights dazzle ; how 
splendidly the orchestra seems to play ; and hark ! the 
boys in the gallery are taking up the tune, and singing 
together with wonderful swing and precision. One 
comic song and street tune follows another ; the band 
suggests and the young musicians take it up with a 
will. Just now they had been a pelting of the pit with 
orange peel — all in good fun, of course. The lads in 
their shirt sleeves had whistled and screamed, and 
saluted friends in distant corners of the gallery ; but 
now all this horse play is quieted by music and melody. 
It is Boxing Night, and there must be patriotism as 
well as pleasure. * Rule Britannia,' * God bless the 
Prince of Wales,' and ' God Save the Queen,' are sung 
from thousands of lusty throats, and all the audience 
rise to their feet, waving hats and handkerchiefs. 
Loyalty is as necessary as love at Christmas-time. 
And what has that good old wizard Blanchard prepared 
for the happy children? He must be as immortal as 
Father Christmas, and certainly is quite as popular. 
He will be the guide up the rocks of romance, and 
away to the fields of fairyland. He will lead his happy 



PANTOMIME. 387 

followers amidst ogres and giants and elves and lays, 
to wizard castles and enchanted dells ; now you will he 
at the bottom of the sea, where lovely queens wave 
sea-weed wands ; and now on land amidst the yellow 
corn-fields and the bluebell lanes. There will be song 
and dance, and the madcap pranks of thousands of 
children, liliputian armies and glittering armor, poe- 
try and processions, hobby-horses and the dear old 
Clown and Harlequin and Pantaloon supporting ' airy 
fairy ' Columbine, if they would only ring that 
prompter's bell and pull up that tantalizing curtain. 
The noise is hushed, the music stops, the overture is 
over — but wart. 

" What are they doing behind the curtain? There 
are beating hearts also in the manufactory of pleasure. 
Christmas-time means food and raiment to the great 
majority of those who are awaiting the prompter's 
signal. They have come from courts and alleys, from 
cold, comfortless rooms, from care and poverty, from 
watching and from want, to this great busy hive that 
uncharitable people abuse and ridicule. Times have 
been bad, the winter has advanced too soon, wages 
have been slack ; but all will be mended now that 
Christmas has come again. Hearts beat lightly under 
the prince's tunics and the dancers' bodices, for every 
mickle makes a muckle, and there is work here, from 
the proud position of head of the Amazonian army to 
the humble individual who earns a shilling a night for 
throwing carrots in a crowd and returning slaps in a 
rally. And the training and discipline of the rehear- 
sals up to this anxious moment have not been without 
their advantage. Punctuality, silence, order, and 
sobriety are the watchwords here. There have been 
no idling, dawdling, and philandering, as many silly 
people imagine. Even the little children have learned 
something, perhaps their letters, perhaps the art of 



388 PANTOMIME. 

singing in unison, certainly the merit of being smart 
and useful. But now it is the great examination day. 
The lessons are over, and the result is soon to be 
known. What a wild fantastic scene it is — a very 
carnival of costumes. Fairies and hop-o'-my-thumbs, 
monkeys, and all the miscellaneous mixture of the 
menagerie, gorgeous knights in armor and spangled 
syrens, Titania and her train, pasteboard chariots, 
wands and crystal fountains, fruits and forest trees, 
mothers, dressers, carpenters, and costermongers for 
the crowd, all mixed up in apparent confusion, but in 
reality as well drilled and disciplined as an army pre- 
pared for action. All belong to some separate depart- 
ment or division ; there is a leader for every squad, 
who is responsible for his men, and if anything goes 
wrong a prompt line is a very wholesome punishment. 
It has been weary work during the last few rehearsals, 
and certain scenes have had to be repeated again and 
again. The testing of the scenery has delayed the 
action, and it has been late enough before these busy 
bees have got to bed. But the excitement of the mo- 
ment gives new vitality. The night has come, and 
everyone is bound to do his or her best. Everything 
is smart and new, and the girls and children are proud 
of their costumes, in which they strut about admir- 
ingly. The stage manager has recovered his amiability, 
and calls everyone " my dear." A rapid, business- 
like glance is cast over the various scenes to see that 
everything is straight and ship-shape ; the reports come 
up from the various departments to say there are no 
defaulters. The gas man is at his post, and the lime- 
light man at his station. The ballet master, with his 
flag in hand, is standing ready on his stool. Ready? 
Yes, sir ! is the answer. Up go the foot-lights with a 
flare, a bell rings, the curtain rises, and the happy 
people before and behind the Christmas curtain meet." 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 

Outside of the legitimate theatres there is a large 
variety of places of amusement — that is, they are 
called places of amusement, but the fumes of vile 
tobacco, the odor of stale beer, the fiery breath of 
cheap whiskey, the sight of filthy women and filthier 
men, and the most excruciating and torturesome kind 
of music, all combine to make the resort anything but 
pleasant and the while the incidents that attract the 
visitor's attention are anything but amusing. There 
is, of course, no complaint of this sort to urge against 
the first-class variety theatres. These cater in a modest 
way to a low standard of intellect, but usually their 
programmes are chaste enough, and unless a person 
has an aversion to having beer spattered over his 
clothes by unhandy waiters while ministering to the 
thirsty wants of a neighbor in the same row, or objects 
to the attention of the gay girls who open wine in the 
private boxes and flirt with the people in the parquette, 
he will find a first-class variety show as pleasant a place 
as a good, long, mixed programme with the Glue 
Brothers in song and dance at one end, the Irish Trip- 
lets, in «« select vocalisms and charming terpsichorean 
evolutions," in the middle, and a lugubrious sketch at 
the other end can make it. By some mysterious law 
known only to variety performers, the variety stage 
only about once in a century produces anything new or 
anything attractive. In the good old days of the bal- 

(389) 



390 VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 

let there was drawing power in the display of shapely 
limbs and the graceful music-of-motion like manner in 
which the girls tip-toed or piroutted across the stage ; 
or when the variety theatre was as much the home of 




FENCING SCENE IN BLACK CROOK. 

spectacle as the legitimate houses pretended to be, 
and on the Vaudeville stage scenes were presented 
that belonged to the same class of labyrinthine scenery 
and profuse female beauty that the " Black Crook'* 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 



391 



and "The Green Huntsman" were the representa- 
tives of. When spectacles were the rage and the fenc- 
ing scene in the " Black Crook " would set the hoys 
at the top of the house wild with joy, the variety 
theatre had among the bright stars of its stage actors 
and actresses who are now among the most popular, 
and certainly among the heaviest money-makers, who 
appear in the legitimate houses. 

Joe Emmett graduated from the variety theatre. 
Gus. Williams was a shining light on the same stage. 
J. C. Williamson was a varietv artist. Geo. D. Knight 
did " Dutch business " in the minor theatres before he 



got 



to be famous as Otto. I recollect having seen 



Knight play Rip Van Winkle in Deagle's old variety 
theatre on Sixth Street, in St. Louis, and he played it 
well — not like Jefferson, of course, but it was his first 
attempt at the part, and if Jefferson did any better the 
first time he must not have improved very much since. 



This was twelve years 



Mrs. Geo. Knight 



(Sophie Worrell) danced on a concert saloon stage in 
San Francisco. So did Lotta, and so did Mrs. Wil- 
liamson. Den Thompson, whose Joshua Whitcomb is 
a perfect picture of the New England farmer, first tried 
this same character in the variety theatre, and Neil 
Burgess and the " Widow Bedotte " were first intro- 
duced to the public as the tail-end of a nigger-singing 
and specialty programme. 

Those were the palmy days of the variety show 
before negro ministrelsy had grown to its present 
enormous proportions and before plays were written so 
as to take in a whole variety entertainment, and under 
the disguise of comedy or farce or burlesque foist a 
lot of specialty people from a first-class stage upon 
an intelligent audience. The musico-mirthful pieces 
that began to blossom forth in 1880 made a * heavy 



392 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT "SALOONS. 



demand upon the resources of the variety houses, and 
within a year threaten to leave them entirely at the 
mercy of " ham-fats,' ' as the lower order of this kind 
of talent is designated. "Fun on the Bristol" and 
fifty more flimsy patchworks of the same kind were 




HAVING A GOOD TIME. 

sailing around the country in a short time, and every 
"team" that had a specialty act of fifteen minutes 
duration wanted a play built to lit it and went around 
telling friends that they guessed they'd go starring 
next season. A great many of them did not go, but a 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 393 

great many others did. The worst were left behind, 
and the result was poor variety programmes and in 
eonsequence poor patronage for them. 

I picked up a programme the other day, belonging 
to what was once a first-class house, and is so still in 
all except the standard of the performance, and found 
such old and worn-out features as a lightning crayon 
artist and a lightning change artist, both of which are 
so threadbare that even a ten-cent theatre wouldn't 
care to give them stage room. It is an easy step from 
this kind of thing down to the dives — the chief variety 
shops where hoodlums congregate and where the 
women are not only shameless on the stage, but are 
bold enough to penetrate the private boxes and make 
chairs of the knees of strange men. The variety dive 
as an institution flourishes wider and pays better than 
places of less savory notoriety. There is such a charm 
to vice that even the saintly do not hesitate to linger 
in its neighborhood a while, and take a sniff of its 
pungent atmosphere. Anybody who drops into Harry 
Hill's place in New York, any night in the week, will 
see some remarkably churchly looking gentlemen stand- 
ing around studying the aspect of the establishment 
and dwelling with melting eyes upon some of the 
painted faces that look up from the beer tables 
ranged at one side of the hall. A correspondent who 
visited Harry Hill's very recently gives the following 
description of the place, its proprietor and its fre- 
quenters : " Harry Hill's grows bigger as its notoriety 
extends with years, but it never changes. It is not a 
bar-room, not a concert saloon, not a pretty waiter- 
girl establishment and not a free-and-easy. None of 
these terms describe it, for it is all those things in one 
and at once — big second-story room, containing a bar, 
a theatrical stage, which can quickly be made into a 



394 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 



prize ring, a bare space for dancing, tables, seats, a 
balcony, and a few so-called wine-rooms. There are 
always as many women as men in the place. The 
women are admitted by a private entrance, free. Men 




pass through a neglected bar-room on the ground floor 
at a cost of twenty-five cents. Prosperity has added a 
mansard roof and a clock-tower to the original struc- 
ture, and Hill has taken in an adjoining building, and 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 395 

turned its best apartments into billiard and pool-rooms 
and a shooting gallery. Let us go in through the bar- 
room, up a winding stair and suddenly into the glare 
and bustle and merriment of the so-called theatre. On 
the stage two women are exhibiting as pugilists, with 
boxing-gloves, high-necked short dresses, soft, fat, 
bare arms, and a futile effort to look very much in 
earnest, and as if they did not realize how apparent it 
was that their greatest effort was to avoid hurting one 
another's breasts or bruising one another's faces. 

" In the chairs around the tables are many men, and 
an equal number of women. The men are mainly 
young, and a majority seem to be country youths or store 
clerks. There are others evidently country men or for- 
eigners. The women wear street-dress, hats and all. 
They are Americans, often of Irish or German extrac- 
tion. As a rule they are not pretty, but they are 
quiet and mannerly. They know the cast-iron rules 
of the house — no loud or profane talking, no loud 
laughing, no quarreling, "no loving." These are 
printed and hang on the walls, and all who go there 
either know or speedily find out that the slightest 
breach of them results in prompt expulsion from the 
house. All are drinking, and many of the women 
are smoking big cigars or tiny cigarettes. Other 
women, without hats or sacques, but wearing big 
white aprons, serve as waiters and as bartenders. 

" Harry Hill himself, a smoth-faced old man, broad, 
bis: and muscular, who shares with Lester Wallack 
the secret of looking twenty years younger than he is, 
sits at a table with a detective and a chief of police 
from some suburb. Hill is always there, and is ever 
entertaining distinguished strangers. Clergymen from 
the cities drop in at the rate of one a night. The 
women, as they come and go, stop and salute or speak 



396 VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 

with Hill. He knows them all, is kind to all, and is 
liked by all. He has nothing to do with them or 
their affairs, however, his place being merely their 
exchange, and their duty being merely to behave 
while there. The boxers bow and retire, and a young 
woman, who was a few minutes before at one of the 
tables with a broker, who was opening champagne, 
now faces the foot-lights in a short silk skirt, bare 
arms, bare head and red clogs. She sprinkles white 
sand on the boards from a gilt cornucopia, the music 
of a piano and three violins strike up, and she rattles 
her heels and toes through a clog dance. It is a waltz 
tune that she is keeping time to, and a tall young 
woman of extremely haughty mien and rich apparel 
seizes a shy and seedy little product of the pavement 
and whirls her round and round in the bare space 
on the floor. The lookers-on gather there, and a 
callow stripling from the country, without previous 
notice or formality, grasps a snubnosed, saucy -looking 
girl in the throng and joins the dancers. 

" * Some of these girls 'as bin a-coming 'ere ten or 
fifteen years,' says Harry Hill, ' and looks better to- 
day than others which left their 'omes a 'alf year ago. 
Hit's hall hacordin' to 'ow they take to drink. Hif 
they go too farst they're sure to go too far.' 

"Do they reform? Well, Mr. Hill says there are 
so many notions of what reform really is, that he 
can't say. Some of them reform and become mis- 
tresses when they get a chance, and some of them 
reform and return and reform again by spells. He 
points out one whom he calls Nellie, and says she 
went away and was going to lead a strictly honest life, 
disappeared for six months, and the other night came 
back again. 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 397 

" I kept my eye on Nellie, and, needing no introduc- 
tion, seized a chance to talk with her. 

" ' I got married, and was as straight as a string for 
six months/ said she ; ' but I had misfortune, and 
had no other way to support myself but to come back 
here.' 

' ' ' Husband leave you ? ' 

" « He got caught cracking a dry goods store, and is 
up for two years.' " 

The patrons of the variety " dives" are usually 
young men, clerks, salesmen, and sometimes the 
trusted employee of a bank or broker's office will get 
" mashed " upon one of the almost naked women who 
appear upon the stage, and will thereafter be numbered 
among the patrons of the resort. Those who have 
gone into the private boxes once and find the girls 
obliging enough to sit on their knees and ask them to 
treat will go there again if they can possibly get the 
fifty cents that is asked as an admission fee. 

Sometimes a party of really Christian men unfamil- 
iar with city ways will get into a variety dive by mis- 
take, and what is more, into the boxes. The glaring 
sign over the front of the house which simply an- 
nounces that the place is a theatre attracts them to the 
box-office. 

" Say, Mister, what do you tax us to go in? " one 
of the party asks. 

" Tickets are twenty-five, thirty-five and fifty cents," 
answers the dapper little man in the box-office who 
looks as if he ought to be a bar-keeper or a barber. 

" Give us Hve of your half-a-dollar chairs," says the 
spokesman, throwing down his money, and they are 
forthwith led to seats in the private boxes, which are 
no more than long galleries walled in and having two 
or three windows to which the occupants crowd when 



398 VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 

anything interesting is going forward on the stage. 
As I have already said these boxes are connected by 
doors with the stage and the serio-comic vocalist who 
has a few minutes to spare will loiter in to strike 
somebody for a drink. 

" Say, baby, can't I have a wet?" one of the female 
wrestlers remarks as she plumps herself down in her 
tights on the quivering knee of a weak little fellow who 
appears young enough to be fond of molasses candy 
yet, and throws her arms around his neck and hugs 
him to her flabby breast violently enough to disarrange 
the black curly hair he had slicked down at the barber 
shop just before he came in. 

"A what?" he asks, trying to get his neck suffi- 
ciently released to be at least comfortable. 

"A drink, darling," and she hugs him again and 
begins playing with a little curl over his forehead. 

" Why, of course you can," is the overwhelmed 
young man's reply. 

Now she looks fondly into his eyes and with the most 
affectionate expression at her command asks: "And 
how about my partner, baby. Can't she have a 
drink?" 

" I suppose so," responds the victim ; and there is a 
loud shouting at the stage-door for " Ida," or some- 
body else, and Ida, knowing what she is wanted for, 
hurries to the spot. In the meantime " Johnnie," the 
waiter, has been summoned. 

" Give me a port wine sangaree," says Ida's part- 
ner. 

"And give me a stone fence" (cider and brandy), 
says Ida. 

"And what are you going to drink, baby?" the 
wrestler sitting on his knee asks. 

" Give me glass of beer," says the " baby," in atone 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 



3'JD 



sufficiently disconsolate to suggest that he was afraid 
he might not have enough money to pay for the treat. 




One night a party of saintly looking grangers from 
Indiana, — five of them, — who appeared as if they were 



400 VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 

a delegation to some sort of a religious conven- 
tion, got into a Bowery dive by some mistake, but 
made no mistake in remaining there. They got in 
early and it was late when they left. The whole thing 
appeared novel, startling to them. They had never 
before seen so much unstripped womanhood exposed 
to the naked eye. They hired a cheap opera-glass 
from the peanut boy, and they bought "pop" the 
whole night long. During the first part, when all the 
girls and the "nigger" end-men sit in a circle and 
sing dismal songs and deal out smutty jokes, the 
grangers were in a perfect - ecstacy of wonder and ad- 
miration for the shortness of the women's dresses and 
the symmetry of their padded limbs ; but when the 
first part was over and a serio-comic singer came trip- 
ping out upon the stage without any dress at all on — 
nothing but a bodice, trunks and flesh-colored tights — 
and sang " Tickled Him Under the Chin," they were 
in a frenzy and did not know what to do with their 
hands, or how to sit still, because the singer kept 
throwing glances in the direction of their box. Then 
came the supreme exaltation of their feelings ; the 
serio-comic danced over to the box as she sang, and ac- 
tually tickled the most clerical member of the quin- 
tette on his fat, white chin, while the four others looked 
on in astonishment, and the audience fairly howled. 

The grangers were " guyed" pitilessly by the audi- 
ence, but they paid little, if any, attention to it. As 
soon as the serio-comic had done her "turn" she 
rushed for their box, and before long the five Hoosiers 
were as happy as the lark when it trills its song to the 
morning. 

The " dive " audiences are mixed in their character, 
as has been already suggested, and the proximity of a 
well-dressed young man to a crowd of hoodlums in 




M'LLE GENEVIEVE 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 401 

jeans pants and braided coats often precipitates a rovr. 
Scarcely a night passes in the flash variety shows that 
there is not some trouble. A " bouncer " is connected 
with each establishment, whose business it should be 
to quell disturbances, but who, like hot-headed Irish 
policemen, do more towards increasing the dimensions 
of a row than forty other men could do. It is bad policy 
to attempt open criticism of the performers or perform- 
ance in one of these dens. A hiss will attract the at- 
tention of the bouncer, who will come down to the 
sibilant offender and say : — 

" Young man, do }'e expect us to give ye Sary Burn- 
hart an' Fannie Divenpoort and Ed'in Booth fur 
twinty-five sints. Af ye don't loike the show lave it, 
but af ye open yer mug ag'in, or say so much as 
< Boo,' I'll put ye fwhere ye'll have plinty toime to 
cool yersel' aff." 

If the offender dares to argue the point the 
"bouncer" will catch him by the neck, and then a 
struggle ensues, canes are flourished, the audience 
rise to their feet, some of the girls run in fright from 
the stage, and there is pandemonium in the place for 
ten or fifteen minutes, by the end of which time the 
" bouncer" has taken his man out, and returning to 
business, triumphantly answers a question as to the 
whereabouts of the hisser : — 

" Oh, I left him lyin' out there in the gutther 
where the collar '11 come along an' get 'im." 

Occasionally there will be an incident of a more 
dangerous kind, but tinged slightly with romance. It 
is related that a cowboy went into a variety show in 
Marshal, Texas, one night and made quite a scene. 
His "mash" was a "chair sweater" in the show. 
Entering the place one night considerably under th« 
?9 



402 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 



influence of brine, he called to his love in stentorian 
tones : — 

" Mary, get your duds on and come with ine," 




ROW IN THE SHOW. 



«Sh-h-h!" said Mary. 

" Sh-h, nothing," was the lover's response. "You 
jest tog up quicker' n h — , or I'll douse these glims." 



VARIETY DIVES AM) CONCERT SALOONS. 403 

" I'll be through in an hour," urged Mary pacifi- 
cally. 

" This show'll be out sooner than that," was the 
cowboy's answer, as he pulled his barker and began 
shooting the tips off the side lights-. He had just 
emptied his " weapin " and was about loading up 
again, when the frightened audience was reassured by 
the stage manager stepping on the stage and saying, 
11 Mary, you are excused for the remainder of the 
evening. Go dress right away." 

A " chair sweater," or " stutter" as she is called out 
West, is a girl who sits in the first part, and who has 
nothing else to do than wear skirts short enough to 
display her limbs, and join in the choruses if she can 
do so without knocking the life out of the selection. 
After the first part she sits in the boxes and " works " 
the boys for drinks. If she can't make anything in the 
boxes she goes out into the audience — in the lowest 
of these dens — and flits from one place to another 
getting a drink here, and by that time "spotting" 
somebody over there whom she esteems worthy of 
" striking." She keeps this up all night, until the 
after-piece — the cancan, or whatever else it may be — 
is reached, when she goes behind the scenes and ap- 
pears on the stage in the same street costume she has 
worn out in the audience. The "-chair sweater's " lot 
is not a happy one. While pursuing her sudorific vo- 
cation she innocently imagines that she is making an 
actress out of herself, and I guess she is — a " dive " 
actress. 

Now and then the "chair sweater" combines her 
own business with that of her employer by selling her 
own or other photographs to " grays." Some of these 
pictures are of the vilest kind, but they sell readily to 
the patrons of the " dive," and as the sale is effected 



404 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 



quietly, even an honest granger now and then buys 
one, " just to show 'em up around the grocery." 

The variety * ' dive ' ' usually closes its performance 
with a fiery and untamed cancan, all the people of the 
company joining in the dance, the men usually in the 
character costumes and "make-up" in which they 
have appeared before in their sketches or acts. 




SELLING HER PICTURE. 



Then follow the orgies behind the scenes. Some- 
times it is a wine supper with champagne from the bar 
of the house flowing so freely that the undressed 
divinities do not hesitate to empty bottle after bottle 
over their heads as if they were Roman candles, there- 
by giving the assemblage a shower of Mumm's Extra 



40(5 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 




AN ORGIE IN THE WINE-ROOM. 

Dry ; or perhaps they will shampoo the swelled head 
of one of the gentlemen. 

In the wine-room, which is an adjunct of all these 



VARIETY DIVES AM) CONCERT SALOONS, 



407 



houses, and which is a place that affords seclusion to 
those who want to be out of the way of meeting friends 



111 






::l;:ilii ;!'! 



— 



iiiiil 



. r ~ ~ 



i I il ! 



II liiii 



k 




DRUGGING A VICTIM. 



or attracting the notice of strangers, many extraordi- 
nary exploits are to be witnessed. Plenty of drink, 



405 VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 

however, is necessary to stimulate the fun, and when 
the girls get an old victim into their clutches they 
"play " him so nicely that he believes the whole lot 




a "bowery 7 on a "lark. 

of them are in love with him, and every few minutes 
comes the cry, " Let's have another bottle," and they 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 409 

have it. They sit on his hi}) or play circus riding on 
his shoulders, and until the last bottle has come, and 
the victim has run dry of funds they keep him in good 
humor; then they show him the door, coldly say 
" Ta, ta ! Baldy," and laugh heartily at his verdant 
innocence as he stagers avvav. 

The man who allows any of these women — these 
cancan dancers or " chair sweaters " — to entice him to 
their home is lost. If he has money and they know it 
they will not take him to their home, but to some 
lodging-house with the proprietor of which the can- 
can dancer is acquainted, and whom she knows she 
can trust. A pitcher of beer and a bit of drugging 
for the victim's glass does the business. While she is 
stroking his beard and kissing the end of his nose the 
drug is flowing gently into the goblet of beer. They 
drink, and in a short time the soporific has its effect, 
and the slumbering man is relieved of his valuables 
and cash. He appeals to the police, and they promise 
to do something for him, but they don't. He sees the 
cancan dancer again the next night but she knows 
nothing about it. The proprietor of the lodging-house 
is dumb as an oyster. All the victim can do is to 
balance the account by putting experience on the debit 
side of the ledger and damphoolishness on the other. 

In New York the Bowery is the great place for these 
dives. There are any number of them, and the Bowery 
actress who is brazen enough to smoke her cigarettes 
in the street, especially when she is " on a lark," may 
be distinguished by the boldness of her face and the 
almost masculine atmosphere that surrounds her. She 
seems to care for nobody and nothing except her small 
dog and the loafer who spends her money, and looks 
upon herself as the equal of the best woman in the 
profession. 



410 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 



The boy theatres which flourish in all large cities, 
and which are dirty, dingy miniature places with gal- 
lery and pit, and six by nine stages upon which the 
goriest of blood-curdling dramas are enacted, have a 
variety phase to them, specialty performers preceding 
the dramatic representations, and half-nude women 




CONCERT SALOON BAND. 

mingling and drinking with beardless youths in the 
boxes. 

The concert saloon, as some of the low places that 
have a fat German with pink-spotted shirt and stove- 
pipe hat playing the piano, while a chap that has the 
outward appearance of a speculative philosopher is 
blowing a cyclone through a cracked cornet, is called, 
has its attractions for many ; and if there are ladies to 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 



411 



eke out the entertainment by squeezing discord out 
of an accordeon with flute ohligato of an ear-piercing 

and peace-destroying kind — or, in fact, if there are 
any female musicians on the grounds, the proprietor 
of the establishment may count on liberal patronage. 
The female orchestras to be found in the Bowery, 
New York, where a squad of pretty girls all dressed 
in white, with a female leader wielding the baton with 




FEMALE BAND. 

as much nerve as if she were old Arditi himself, are 
irresistible attractions to those whose tastes lead them 
to lager beer, and who like to partake of the beverage 
particularly in pleasant surroundings. A person does 
not get very much beer, but he hears a great deal 
of wild music, and unless he is over-sensitive he will 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 



413 



forgive the music and forget the beer — if he can. 
Tt is but a few years since that the keeper of a beer 
garden first introduced these institutions into American 




OVER THE RHINE. 



life. His venture proved so successful that imitators 
sprang up all along the Bowery. The tenements of 



414 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 



the East Side were explored, and every female who 
could torture the neighbors with an accordeon, scrape 
the catgut or bang the piano was enlisted in the grand 
scheme of catering to the musical tastes of Gotham's 
beer drinkers. 

" Over the Rhine," in Cincinnati, is a great place for 
cheap and vicious amusements. A correspondent writ- 
ing from there says: "The places of amusement 




AN IDEAL " MASHER. : 



"Over the Rhine" line Vine Street for half a dozen 
blocks. They are of the democratic and, with one 
exception, rude order, more familiar to the backwoods 
than to the civilization east of the Mississippi. Some 
are large establishments with all the fittings of an East 
Side variety theatre. Others are mere halls with a 
limited stage at one end. To some an admission is 
charged, ranging from ten cents up to twenty-five 



VARIETY DIVES AND CONCERT SALOONS. 415 

cents, but most of them are free. The performers in- 
clude many familiar stars of the variety stage, for the 
salaries paid are of the best. The performances, 
though vulgar, are clean enough. The drinks pay all 
expenses, of course. Beer is served throughout the 
house and smoking is perpetually in order. In most 
places there is a gallery of boxes where the young 
women from the stage mingle with such of the 
audience as, by their generosity, deserve such honor. 
These are " stuffers," or as they call them here " chair 
warmers." One of them has conquered the soul of a 
local critic and he is actually puffing her into promi- 
nence in her peculiar line through the columns of one 
of the leading papers." 



CHAPTEE XXIX. 



A TEAM OF IRISH COMEDIANS. 

The variety stage is responsible for a great many 
theatrical "what-is-its." A few vears a°:o there was 
not so much variety to the variety business ; the pro- 
jectors of mastodon and megatherian companies were 
not in the field to encourage poor artists, and only the 
really eminent and excellent in this branch of the 
profession were allowed to inflict themselves on first- 
class audiences. Now the dizziest of the throng make 
their way to the foot-lights under respectable auspices 
in the largest cities, and share with their really deserv- 
ing brethern, about, in equal parts, the sympathy and 
applause of large and fashionable houses. The differ- 
ent branches of the business are, at present, subdivided 
into more parts than there were formerly principal 
divisions, and every new feature of the profession has 
its exalted and also its insignificant exponents. There 
are a hundred and one different styles of song-and- 
dance men and son^-and-dance women ; serio-comics 
are as widely variant in their styles and repertoires, as 
they call the few songs they sing threadbare, as they 
are numerous and diverse in their types of beauty or 
ugliness ; sketch artists have in their multiplicity in- 
fringed upon the legitimate comedians, the wild bur- 
lesques, and the highly operatic stars' territories ; 
there are scores and scores of schools of musical mokes 
and thousands of performers with eccentric acts of one 
kind or another that are intended to astonish and be- 

(416) 



A TEAM OF iuisil COMEDIANS. 



117 



wilder the " natives," as they call the vast number of 
people who patronize their shows. But the Irish com- 
edian stands out amid all these changes, immutable in 
his make-up and unmindful of the hoary age of the 




EDWIN HARRIGAN. 



jokes with which he tortures the intelligent portions of 
his audiences. He has been dressed and redressed 
and placed before the public in any number of shapes 
that were intended to be novel, extending from the one 

27 



418 



A TEAM OF IRISH COMEDIANS. 



extreme of the so-called neat Irish humorist to the 
other, at which stands the loud-mouthed, heel-clicking 
and head-breaking North of Ireland character ; but the 
disguise is always thin, the efforts of the performers 




TONY HART. 



are vapid, and all the comedians succeed in looking 
pretty much alike, in saying the same melancholy 
things, and in betraying a kinship that is unmistak- 
able and strongly provocative of pity. 



A TEAM OF IRISH COMEDIANS. 419 

A few performers have been successful in making 
reputations as North of Ireland characters, but they 
are very few. Ferguson and Mack were for a time at 
the head of this class of variety comedians, but they 
got lazy, failed to exhibit anything like extensive orig- 
inality, and carted their old jokes and stale " busim 
to England and back, until they have fallen pretty 
much to the rear ranks. Harrigau & Hart, who have 
a large theatre in New York, and whose play, " Squat- 
ter Sovereignt} r ," had a run of almost a year, are now 
the best known and really the cleverest of the members 
of the profession who make aspecialty of Irish comedv. 
Billy Barry and Hugh Fay have made fame and money 
with their laughable " Muldoon's Picnic," and there 
are probably a score of others whose efforts would be 
worth mentioning if they could be recalled at this mo- 
ment. As in all other lines, however, the ranks have 
been filled up with men and boys who are even more 
ignorant and ridiculous off the sta^e than on : who 
have graduated from newspaper hawking and boot 
blacking routes to the back door of the sta^e, and 
whose limited powers of mimicry, whose retentive 
memories for old and poor jokes, and whose rhinoce- 
ros-hide cheek — absolute ''gall" they would call it 
themselves — are their only recommendations to any 
consideration. They, like all other really bad actors, 
look down upon every brother professional and imagine 
that they alone have attained to the privileged height 
above which there is no firm foothold for anybody 
else. It is the pleasing prerogative of all poor artists 
to have hallucinations of this kind, and to dwell in 
temples of fame that are built upon the sands of their 
own imaginations. Nobody ever disabuses them of 
their egotistical ideas, and if anybody attempted to do 



420 A TEAM OF IRISH COMEDIANS. 

bo he would be set down as the very gausiest of " guys ' ' 
for his pains. 

The Irish comedian, and especially the eccentric 
gentleman who hails from the North of Ireland, has 
multiplied so rapidly of late that the stock of jokes 
with which the original North of Ireland comedian 
started out many years ago has been turned over thou- 
sands of times, and occasionally a modern audieuce 
actually cry when they are made parties to the ghoul- 
ish crime of resurrecting the dead and buried sa^s. 
It is my intention to here present the picture of a team 
of North of Ireland comedians, and give an idea of 
the manner in which they amuse their audiences ; for 
some of the people who go to the theatre are so guile- 
less and so easily tickled that they find themselves 
greatly amused by a dialogue teeming with ancient 
Hibernianisms. The stories chosen are invariably of 
the most vulgar and disgusting character, abounding 
in references and suggestions that would not be lis- 
tened to outside of the theatre. The peddlers of 
these rare bits of stage humor choose all manner of 
make-ups to set off their stock in trade. A gorgeous 
plaid suit with baggy trousers and short coat topped 
by a high white hat, and the outfit completed with a 
cane ; or a wardrobe consisting of a semi-respectable 
thin-sleeved, square-tailed frock coat and high- 
water broadcloth pants, with polished and towering 
stove-pipe hat; or a hod-carrier's rig; or any half- 
idiotic attempt to duplicate a workingman's get-up — 
a " gas-house tarrier," who tells you about Micky 
Duffy having got a job to wheel out smoke or to suck 
wind from bladders, — any of these maybe chosen. 
The clothes may diifer, but the jokes, the " business," 
and the facial pictures will always be found the same. 
Canes and stove-pipe hats — white or black — are even 



A TEAM OF IRISH COMEDIAN8. 421 

more necessary for the success of an Irish comedian 
than is talent of any kind ; the canes arc used for 
thumping the floor of the stage, and the stove-pipe 
hats for banging each oilier in the face, for this class 
of comedians always travel in pairs. There is a great 
deal of floor-thumping and hat-slapping in one of their 
acts, and among the rough acrobatic aspirants to fame 
the feet are freely used upon each other, and there is 
a reckless lot of falling and tumbling in breakneck 
style upon the stage. 

In making up his face the Irish comedian generally 
likes to indulge in a shrubbery of beard around the 
neck under either a clean shaven or stubble-strewn 
chin ; if he aims at anything like decency in his ap- 
pearances he will affect only brushy side-whiskers. A 
red expression around the nose and under the eyes, 
and a red or black wig to match his special eccentricity, 
complete his needs in this respect. The two speci- 
mens of Irish comedians that I have chosen for pre- 
sentation here were of the alleged neat type in their 
profession. They were travelling with Tony Pastor 
when I saw them, and in their outward aspect greatly 
resembled Harry and Johnny Kernell. They were 
credited with holding a high position in their particu- 
lar line, and their names were on the walls and fences 
in letters a foot long ; in addition to this they came on 
late in the programme, which is always a sure indica- 
tion of the importance of the estimate placed on an 
act or artist by the management. 

But here comes one of them. The Stein Sisters 
have just finished a song-and-dance, " the flat," for 
the street scene comes together, the orchestra with a 
wild flourish of bass drum and cornet strikes up a 
familiar Irish melody, and, after a few bars, one of the 
comedians enters. He is tall, wears a gray woollen suit 



422 A TEAM OF IRISH COMEDIANS. 

of fashionable cut, a hat that never in the world would 
sit on an Irish head ; a red-haired wig, partly bald, is 
secured under the hat ; gaiters with black over-gaiters 
clothe the feet, and the face is smooth and genteel, 
except upon the chin, whence a long thin beard pro- 
trudes like a plowshare. An ordinary twenty-five-cent 
cane puts the finishing touches to his wardrobe. He 
looks like a hack-driver out for a holiday, or a Kerry 
Patch politician dressed for a Skirmishing Fund picnic. 
He faces the audience from the middle of the lower part 
of the stage as boldly as if he were going to entertain 
them with something new. He pretends to be angry, 
and when the music has ceased, begins to pace wildly 
up and down the front of the stage, as he shouts re- 
gardless of all the rules of common sense and elo- 
cution : — 

" The oidea av callin' me a tarrier ! Why a Span- 
yard can't walk the shtreets nowadays widout bein' 
taken for a Mick or a tarrier ! " 

There are always a few indiscreet people in the 
audience who laugh at this sally, and the comedian 
goes on : " But there's no use talkin', my b'y's bad as 
the rest av 'em. Whin he wint away from home, two 
years ago, he sez to me, sez he : ' Father, whin you 
hear from me ag'in I'll be President av the United 
States.' I got a letter from him last week say in' he was 
wan av the foinest shoemakers in the State's prison." 
This also raises a laugh, and he continues: "But 
there's nawthin' but trouble in this wurrld. The 
other day I bought a horse, and the man tould me 
he'd throt a mile in two minits ; and be heavens he 
could do it only fur wan thing — the disthance is too 
much fur the toime. [Laughter by the audience.] 
I'm railly ashamed ivery toime I take that animal out 
a roidin', fur I've got to put a soign upon him savin', 



A TEAM OF EBI8H COMEDIANS. 423 

' This is ii horse.' [Laughter.] My woife an' ber 
mother tuck the horse out fur a droive in the park the 

other day ; the horse run away, the buggy upsot, an' 
my woife and mother-in-law war thrun out an' kilt. 
Now, whether you belave me or not, more than live 
hundred married rain have binaftber me thryin' to b'y 
that horse. [Laughter by the male portion of the au- 
dience.] But I won't sell him, because I'm thinkin' 
av gettin' married ag'in meself. [Laughter.] I've 
got a gerrl — she's a swate crayther av sixteen sum- 
mers, several hard winters [titter], and I think she's 
put in a couple av hard falls [laughter] ; but she'll 
spring up ag'in all right. [Loud and indiscriminate 
laughter ] I tuck her to the shlaughter-house the 
other day to see 'em kill hogs. She wuzwatchin' 'em 
butcher the poor craythers whin all to wonst she turns 
to me an' sez, sez she, * Whin' 11 yure turn come, dear 
John?' [Laughter.] We're married now. My woife 
is very fond of cats. Three weeks ago she axed me to 
make her a prisint av wan, and I tuck wan home. 
That noight the cat got into my woife' s bed-chamber, 
got into the bed, sucked her breath, and in the mornin' 
my woife was dead. The other noight I wint out an' 
got dhrunk, wint home and got in bed ; the same cat 
kem and sucked my breath, and be heavens ! whither 
ye belave me or not, in the mornin' the cat was 
dead!" 

There are many persons in the audience who seem 
not to have read this story in the original Greek, — for 
it appears among the queer things Hierokles, the Joe 
Miller of ancient times, wrote, — and these persons 
laugh at the ghastly joke, while the orchestra gives a 
chord, and the comedian, tilting his hat forward, flour- 
ishing his cane and walking around the stage with the 
air of a man who has done an act of charity of which 



424 A TEAM OF IRISH COMEDIANS. 

he is proud, at last comes down to the foot-lights and 
sings : — 

I'm Levi McGinnis 
The alderman! The alderman! 

I'm Levi McGinnis 
The alderman so gay. 

Or some equally nonsensical and jingling lines, after 
which he dances a few steps and hurriedly exits. As 
he is going off at one side his partner comes on at the 
opposite side with another armful of " chestnuts " — 
as they call worn-out gags, in the show business. The 
partner is known as Solomon O'Toole. He is dressed 
in square-cut frock coat, high vest, and short panta- 
loons, has a squatty, white, square-top, stiff hat, side- 
whiskers, — " Gal way sluggers " or " Carolinas " they 
are usually called, — carries a cane, and altogether 
from the expression of his face seems a quiet and 
harmless fellow. His tongue is broguey but clear, 
and he speaks with a rapidity which suggests that he is 
either ashamed of what he is saying or is afraid he will 
forget some part of it. He says : — 

" Now, I'm a man can shtand a joak, but whin I go 
into a barber shop on Sunday mornin' and the colored 
barber pins a newspaper under me chin ail' hands me 
a towel to read, its goin' a little too far. [Laughter.] 
But whin a man goes out in the mornin', these days, 
there's no knowin' whether or not he'll come back 
ag'in at night The other day I went to see a friend 
o' moine named John Gilligan, who lives at Newton 
Stuart, about tin moile from Poketown, on the Hosr 
an' Hominy Road, an' he tuck me to hear a South 
Caroliny pr'acher who was pr'achin' an eloquint sar- 
min. Everything wint all roight until the pr'acher 
sez, sez he, " When God med the fust man he stud 
him up ag'instafince to dhry ! " I hollered out, "Who 



A TEAM OF HUSH COMEDIANS. 



425 



med the fince?" an' be heavens, they bounced me on 
theiinpul.se av the niomint. [Laughter.] But az I 
sed afore, whin a man goes out in the mornin' he n< 
knows what's goin' to happen. The other mornin' 
I wint over to the Grand Paycific Hotel — I go there 
every morning' ; there's a friend av mine board in' 
there be the waik, an' whin he laves town I go over an' 
ate his males for him ; but I wint over there th' other 
mornin' an' picked up a paper an' I read an arteckle 
headed ' The Chinaise Must Go.' Now, be heavens, 
I don't want the fellow that's got my three shurrts to 
go until I git 'em baek from him ag'in. [Laughter.] 
A friend av moine named Gilli^an bought a goat the 
other day, an' he goes about the shtreets atin' eysther- 
cans an' knoekin' the childher over in the gutter. He 
butted over a little nagur b'y th' other mornin', and 
whin Gilligan was taken to coort he summoned me as 
a witness for the prosecution. Whin I tuck the wit- 
ness shtand the judge axed me what me name waz, an' 
I sed Michael Mahoney ; an' he axed me what war me 
nationality, whin be way av a joak I sez, sez I, 
'I-talyan,' an' be heavens, he gev me six months for 
perjuree. [Laughter.] I wint into a salune th' other 
day; some av the b'ys war settin' around a table 
play in' cassinoe, an' whin they saw me come in, one 
av 'em sez, sez he, * Luck out for the Mick, or he'll 
swipe up all the lunch!' [Laughter.] I've got a 
b'y that the Chicago base-ball club used for a foul 
nag on rainy days. [Smiles.] They threw a ball to 
him th' other day an' hit him in th' eye ; I tuck him 
to an occulist who tuck the eye out an' laid it on a 
table ; be heavens, a cat kem along an' swallied the 
eye. [Smiles.] The docthor tould me to kum 
around next day, an' I tuck the b'y wid me. The 
occulist had cut out wan av his cat's eyes, an' he puts 



4l?() A TEAM OF IRISH COMEDIANS. 

it into the h'ys head. [Audible smiles.] Now the 
b'ys doin' fust rate, only whin he goes to bed at 
noight wan eye stez open an' keeps roamin' around fur 
rats. [Laughter.] Gilligan has got two b'ys. Wan 
av thim hasn' spint a cint fur two year ; he'll be out 
(of prison) in October. [Laughter.] The other b'y 
will make his mark in the world ; in fact he med his 
mark on me the other noight. He put a tack on a 
chair with the belligeriht ind to'rds me, an' whin I 
wint to sit down I got up ag'iu very suddintly. I 
don't care how ould a man is, or how tired he is, whin 
he sits down on the belligerint ind av a tack he is 
bound to assoom agility an' youthfulness. [Laughter.] 
It maybe but a momentary assumption, but the agility 
is always there. The other mornin' I intered a friend's 
salune. There war grape shkins on the mire, an' I 
sez to him, 'How do ye do, Mr. Cassidy? I see you 
had a party last uight.' < What makes you think 
so?' sez he. ' Because I see the grape shkins on the 
flure,' sez I. « Thim's not grape shkins,' sez he; 
thim's eyes. Some of the b'ys hed a fight here lasht 
noight an' you're now survey in' the battle-field.' 
[Laughter.] But I was expectin' a friend av moine 
down here, Levi McGinnis. Ah, here he comes. 
Levi, how are you? " 

"I'm well, Solomon," says the other, who has come 
on the stage and is shaking hands with Solomon. 
" What kept you so quick?" 

"I'd been here sooner," is the smart response, 
" only I couldn't get down any later." 

" It waz a very wet whither Ave had lasht winther, 
Solomon?" 

Yes. Did you buy any rubbers yet this year? " 

Not this year." 

Goodyear." 



i i 



A TEAM OP HilSII COMEDIANS. 487 

" Where did von go when you left me th' other 
noight?" Levi continues. 

" I went down to the maskeerade ball." 

" I heard you was there. They put you out because 

you wouldn't take your mask off after 12 o'clock." 

" But I didn't have any mask on. - It waz me own 
face . " / 

" That's what I tould them," says Levi, " but they 
wouldn't belave me." 

This raises a laugh. - Solomon looks for a moment 
with astonishment at Levi, then thumps his cane 
against the floor in an angry manner, and walks in a 
circle around the stage as if terribly disgusted at 
having allowed himself to be sold. This look, cane- 
thumping and walk-around are stereotyped Hiber- 
nianisms, and are introduced at the end of each " sell." 
As Solomon O'Totole gets sold all the time this end 
of the business is as exclusively his as if he had a 
patent on it. 

" I went into- a salune thismornin'," said Solomon, 
" to git a glass av beer. I got me beer, ped foivo 
sints, and waz jist goin' to blow the foam off it when 
somebody cries out, ' Foight !' I laid down me beer 
an' run out the dure to see where the foight waz, but 
there was no foight. Whin I got back me beer waz 
£one. I called for another glass an' waz coin' to 
dhrink it down, when somebody shouts, « Foire ! ' 
Now I wanted to see the foire an' I didn't want to 
lose me beer, so I pulls out a bit av pincil an' paper 
an' wroites on it, « I have shpit in this beer.' When 
I puts the paper on tap av the beer an' wint out to see 
the foire. There was no foire, an' what do you think 
happin'd whin I got back? " 

11 Your beer waz gone," said Levi. 

"No it wazn't," Solomon interposed. "The beer 



428 A TEAM OF IRISH COMEDIANS. 

w:iz there an' the bit av paper waz on tap av it, but 
some sucker had wrote roight ander my wroitin', ' So 
hev I.' " 

The conclusion of the story is of course greeted with 
laughter. 

" Here, Solomon," says Levi, " I want to make 
you a prisent." 

" An' what's this? " Asks Solomon, examining the 
article that has been handed to him. 

"A shoe horn." 

"An' what do I want wid an ould shoe horn? " 

" Thry an' get your hat on your head with it" an- 
swers Levi, amid an outburst of merriment from the 
audience. 

"How long can a man live widout brains?" is 
Solomon's next conundrum. 

" I don't know," says Levi. "How ould are you 
now?" [Laughter.] 

" What is a plate of hash? " Levi asks. 

"An insult to a square meal," Solomon answers 
triumphantly. 

" Thin you can shtand more insults than any other 
man I ever saw," says Levi, whereat Solomon's indig- 
nation causes him to manoeuvre to the right of stage 
in proper position for the next question. 

" What's the diff 'rence bet wane you and a jack- 
ass? " he asks, looking sternly at Levi. 

The latter measures the floor with his eye, and an- 
swers, "About twelve foot." Solomon thumps his 
cane against the floor once more, looks bereft of all 
the pleasure he ever possessed on earth, and moving up 
to Levi, says : — 

" No, that's not the roight answer." 

"Well, " says Levi, " I'd loike to know what is the 
diff 'rince betwane }^ou an' a jackass ? " 



A TEAM or IEI8IJ COMEDIANS, 429 

"No diff 'rince," shouts Solomon, throwing up his 

hands, and coming down the stage shaking with laughter. 
Suddenly the fact dawns upon him that he has made 
a mule of himself. His face assumes a bewildered ex- 
pression, and he hastily returns from the scene fol- 
lowed by Levi McGinniss, while the orchestra strikes 
up a lively air in anticipation of the encore which is to 
call the comedians out to do a wild Irish reel. 

This is a fair sample of the dialogue indulged in by 
a team of Irish comedians of average ability, and the 
reader will at once understand from it what ridic- 
ulous and almost disgusting language and incidents 
are made use of to raise a laugh, and how very easy it 
is to-please a variety theatre audience. Pat Rooney's 
shrug of the shoulders and Land-League phiz, or some- 
body else's queer walk becomes the rage, and imme- 
diately there are a hundred weak and pitiful imitators. 
So, too, with such a dialogue as the foregoing ; it 
seems to " catch on " with the public, and every Irish 
comedian on the stage must appropriate at least a por- 
tion of it, — and usually the very worst portion. It 
is safe to assume that the variety stage to-day has 
no so-called North of Ireland Irishman who does not 
fling at least a half-dozen of the sorry witticisms I have 
here given, at the heads of his audience. There is no 
law against it, — no protection for the patrons of the 
theatres, who can do nothing else than to grin and 
stand it, — and therefore the Irish comedian and his 
11 chestnuts " forever flourish in this land of the free 
and home of the brave. 



CHAPTER XXX. 



THE BLACK ART. 



The black art, as the art of magic is termed, has 
arrived at a degree of perfection that is amazing. 
The magicians of the Orient for a long time were held 
up as superior to any rivals outside their country. 
They sat in the streets, and without paraphernalia 
caused flowers to burst from pots of earth and spring 
into instantaneous growth ; they had their then wonder- 
ful basket trick, in which a boy, having entered a basket, 
to all appearances just large enough to receive him, re- 
mained there while the magician ran his sword through 
the basket in all directions, after which the boy came 
forth unharmed ; there were sword swallowers among 
them, and altogether their skill in and knowledge of 
the art of mystifying was considered beyond reproach. 
The Chinese, too, profess to be good jugglers and 
magicians, and so they are. But the Europeans and the 
Americans have stepped in, and the Hindoo and the 
Chinaman may now go to the rear in magic. Houdin, 
Heller, Macallister, and Hermann have done tricks far 
superior to anything the Eastern wonder-workers are 
capable of, either in the way of mechanical intricacy or 
manual dexterity. The latter feature is cultivated en- 
tirely, and you no longer see the magician's stage cov- 
ered high and low with glittering paraphernalia, whose 
brightness was beautifully set off by the black velvet 
hangings in the background. Now there is nothing 
presented to the view of the audience except a small 

(430) 



THE BLACK ABT. 431 

table in the centre of the stage. Taking Mr. Hermann, 
for example : This magician comes out in full even- 
ing dress, with coat sleeves pushed back revealing his 
immaculate shirt cuffs and gorgeous sleeve buttons. 
Whatever articles he will inject into his tricks he car- 
ries in the capacious pockets of his coat or in the 
palm of his hand. He introduces himself pleasantly 
to the audience in his broken English, and at once the 
performance begins. From that time on until the last 
illusion is given the audience remains in darkness as 
to his methods. He seldom leaves the stage, going 
only up to the last entrance, where, by standing 
against the projecting wing his confederate can fill his 
pockets with what he needs. A magician's coat looks 
like a very common-place effort at the swallow-tail ar- 
ticle. That's all it is exteriorly, but if you get a 
glimpse of the side the lining is on, you will find from 
eight to a dozsn large and small pockets in the gar- 
ment. Two of the pockets are huge affairs, running 
from the front edge back under the arms, thus leav- 
ing a wide mouth, so that large articles can quickly be 
dropped into them. 

Hermann is a great trickster, not only on the 
stage, but off. He walked into a barber-shop in Mem- 
phis one day, went up to the place where the razors 
were kept-, and taking up one, calmly cut his throat, 
standing before the glass after the gash had been 
made, and with evident pleasure regarding the profuse 
flow of blood from the wound. The barbers and their 
customers ran wildly into the streets j^clling like a 
tribe of Feejees around a barbecue of roast missionary. 
They called the police, and raised a small riot in their 
immediate neighborhood. The police came and entered 
the shop, only to find Hermann coming forward to 
greet them, laughing and remarking that it was only a 



432 



THE BLACK ART. 



little practical joke. There was not the slightest sign 
of any wound upon his throat, and it was only when 
the barbers were told that it was Hermann, the magi- 
cian, that they could be brought to believe that he had 
not really cut his throat through, and then by some 
wonderful healing art closed the gap again. 




Hermann's " sell. ; 



During his engagement in New York last season, 
the famous magician demoralized a waiter and the 
proprietor of a German beer saloon by making the 
foaming glass appear and disappear, and in receiving 
the accurate change of a five-dollar note counted it be- 



THE BLACK ART. 433 

fore the chagrined proprietor and made it appear that 
the amount returned was $12, which he coolly pock- 
eted. But his best trick was the "sell" he per- 
petrated ou the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
to Children. He had it announced that he would re- 
sume his old feat of blowing a child from a cannon, 
and making it appear safe and sound in the gallery of 
the theatre. This set the society in arms at once. 
He was notified that if he tried it the child (an appren- 
tice) would be taken from him. He replied that he 
was going to rehearse the feat on Thursday morning, 
anyhow ; whereupon an agent of the society, with a 
writ of habeas corpus , rushed upon the scene. Just 
as he was about to ram the child into the piece of 
heavy ordnance aimed at the gallery of the Grand 
Opera House, the agent seized it and a tussel ensued 
between him and the magician. In the pulling and 
hauling one of the legs of the disputed youngster came 
off, and it was dicovered that it was only a gigantic, 
well-made-up doll. The agent escaped amid roars of 
laughter, leaving his trophy behind. The press, too, 
had been sold by the trick, so none of the papers pub- 
lished the item. 

Much as Hermann has sold others, he has been pretty 
badly sold himself. I remember one night while Her- 
mann was playing South, and doing his cabinet trick, 
some of the boys around the theatre put up a job on 
him that resulted disastrously as far as the trick was 
concerned. The cabinet is a large contrivance greatly 
resembling the huge refrigerators in use in grocery 
stores, and some who know, say, bearing a great re- 
semblance to saloon refrigerators. It has a false back 
and is so constructed that one or more persons may be 
hidden in the rear compartment. In the trick Her- 
mann makes use of two colored boys, who must be 



434 TtiE BLACK ART. 

alike in size and facial appearance. Only one of the 4 
boys figures in the trick at first, going through a funny 
bit of play and dialogue with the magician, until at 
last he leaves the stage to get a knife with which to 
combat a big monkey that has been locked up in the 
cabinet. When boy No. 1 goes off the stage for a 
knife boy No. 2 comes back with it and is hurriedly 
pushed into the cabinet. Meanwhile boy No. 1 has 
left the stage-door and is running fast as he can around 
the block. The magician after standing at the cabinet 
a few minutes — just long enough to allow boy No. 1 
to get to the front entrance of the theatre — opens the 
door, and lo ! boy No. 2 is gone. " Boyee ! Boy-ec ! " 
the magician shouts, " Say boy-ee w'ere are you, 
boy-ee?" " Here I is, boss," the boy shouts, rush- 
ing breathlessly up the aisle. The trick surprises 
everybody, and is a good one. On the occasion I refer 
to, the "boys" got a policeman to arrest the lad 
while he was running around from the back to the 
front door. The blue-coat took him to the station and 
Hermann shouted in vain for his " boy-ee," and was 
finally obliged to close the trick without the appear- 
ance of his darkey confederate. 

As I have spoken above about the jugglers and 
tricksters of the Orient I may as well say that I wit- 
nessed the performances of the trickster who was in 
Harry French's Hindoo troupe. There was nothing 
marvellous in his feats, the boy-and-basket trick alone 
being the only thing of an astonishing character that 
he presented, and that being susceptible of easy expla- 
nation, the boy being light and supple and capable of 
moving or contracting his body so as to keep out of 
the way of the sword thrusts, which by the way were 
not of a violent character. In a private entertainment 
given by this juggler he appeared more awkward and 



THE BLACK ART. 435 

clumsier than many an amateur who undertakes to fur- 
nish a parlor entertainment for his friends. It was 
evident that he would undergo suffering and pain for 
the success of a trick, as he took an ordinary wooden 
tooth-pick and while pretending to push it, in its en- 
tirety, into one corner of his eye, actually did push 
part of it in, not having broken it off short enough in 
the process of concealing it. Again he swallowed a 
yard of black thread, and taking a knife cut a small 
opening in his side and brought forth a yard of black 
thread that had, of course, been concealed there before- 
hand. The thread was bloody and was drawn slowly 
from its place of concealment. 

A correspondent writing from China about the street 
jugglers to be seen there, savs : " Sword-swallowing 
and stone-eating appear to be the commonest feats, 
and operators of this description may be found in 
almost every street. One fellow, however, performed 
a number of feats in front of our hotel, which demand 
from me more than a passing notice. He stationed 
himself in the middle of the street, and having blown 
a bugle-blast to give warning that he was about to 
begin his entertainment, he took a small lemon or 
orange tree, which was covered with fruit, and bal- 
anced it upon his head. He then blew a sort of chir- 
ruping whistle, when immediately a number of rice 
birds came from every direction, and settled upon the 
boughs of the bush he balanced or fluttered about his 
head. He then took a cup in his hand, and began to 
rattle some seeds in it, when the birds disappeared. 
Taking a small bamboo tube, he next took the seeds 
and putting one in it blew it at one of the fruit, when 
it opened and out flew one of the birds, which flut- 
tered about the circle surrounding the performer. He 
continued to shoot the seeds at the oranges until 



43 1> THE BLACK ART. 

nearly a dozen birds were released. He then removed 
the tree from his forehead, and setting it down, took 
up a dish, which he held above his head, when all the 
birds flew into it, then covered it over with a cover, 
and giving it a whirl or two about his head, opened it 
and displayed a quantity of eggs, the shells of which 
he broke with a little stick, releasing a bird from each 
shell. The trick was neatly performed, and defied 
detection from my eyes. The next trick was equally 
astonishing and difficult of detection. Borrowing a 
handkerchief from one of his spectators, he took an 
orange, cut a small hole in it, then squeezed all the juice 
out, and crammed the handkerchief into it. Giving 
the orange to a bystander to hold, he caught up a 
teapot and began to pour a cup of tea from it, when 
the spout became clogged. Looking into the pot, 
apparently to detect what was the matter, he pulled 
out the handkerchief and returned it to the owner. 
He next took the orange from the bystander and cut it 
open, when it was found to be full of rice." 

Two of the finest tricks now on the stage are the 
serial suspension and the Indian box-trick. The latter 
I explain in the next chapter. The serial suspension, 
which is best seen in Prof. Seernan's performances, 
consists in apparantly mesmerizing a young lady 
while she is standing on a stool between two upright 
bars, upon each of which she rests an elbow. When 
she is in the mesmeric state the stool is removed, 
leaving her suspended upon both elbows ; then one 
of the bars — that under the left elbow — is removed, 
and the fair subject still remains motionless, her entire 
weight resting upon the elbow of the right arm, which 
is extended out from the body, with the hand thrown 
easily and gracefully against the cheek. Next, her 
figure is pushed out from the bar through various 



THE BLACK ART. 437 

angles, until at last she reclines upon her strange 
serial couch, which is scarcely more than one 
inch in diameter. The illusion is a beautiful one, 
and astonishes all who see it. Occasionally the 
creaking of the steel joints under the elbow is heard 
out in the audience, "giving away" the feat, for the 
actual fact is that the young lady is not in a mesmeric 
condition, but is held in position by a steel armor 
worn under her costume, with a joint at the elbow 
that fits into the upright bar, where a powerful s}'stem 
of leverage holds the body in any position desired. 

Hermann's bird trick is a fine one. He comes be- 
fore the audience with a living bird in a small ca^e 
held between both hands, and " Wan ! Two ! T'ree ! " 
with a sudden movement, and without turning away 
from the audience spreads his arms, when, lo ! the bird 
and cage have disappeared. The explanation given by 
some is that the cage is made of rubber, which, when 
released envelopes the bird in a sort of sack which 
flies up the magician's sleeve. 

Nearly every young man in the land who has seen 
a magician on the stage, wants to master the black 
art. It is very easy for him to do so. All he needs 
is a great deal of what is vul^arlv known as «« cheek," 
and termed in theatrical slang, " gall," a quick eye, 
and ease and rapidity of movement in handling articles. 
The first thing to be learned is the art of" palming " — 
concealing small objects in the palm of the hand. 
Coins, balls, handkerchiefs, etc., are hidden in this 
wa} r , being held in the open hand by the pressure of 
the fleshy part of the thumb. In this way the shower 
of coin and many like tricks are done. When the art 
of " palming " is understood, rapidity of movement is 
the next thing, and then come the mechanical and 
other tricks, 



438 THE BLACK ART. 

Only the old-school magicians — the fakirs — retain 
the fire-eating trick in their entertainments. Any 
school-boy can do it now, as the preparation for it is 
very simple. By anointing the tongue with liquid 
storax, a red-hot poker may be licked cool, or coals taken 
from the fire may be placed upon the tongue and left 
there until they become black. To any person who 
has an appetite for flames, or for whom five-cent 
whiskey is not fiery enough, a trial of this trick will be 
gratifying. And should there be a desire to walk on 
fire or on red-hot iron, let the aspiring salamander 
take half an ounce of camphor, dissolve it in two ounces 
of aqua vitas, add to it one ounce of quicksilver, one 
ounce of liquid storax, which is the droppings of myrrh, 
and prevents the camphor from firing ; take also two 
ounces of hematis, which is red stone, to be had at the 
druggist's. Let them beat it to a powder in their 
great mortar, for being very hard it cannot well be re- 
duced in a small one ; add this to the ingredients al- 
ready specified, and when the walking is to be done 
anoint the feet with the preparation, when the trick 
may be accomplished without the slightest danger. 

If anybody desires to be ghastly in his trickery, he 
may cut a man's head off and put it in a platter a yard 
from his body. This is done by causing a board, a 
cloth, and a platter to be purposely made with holes in 
each to fit a boy's neck. The board must be made of 
two planks, the longer and broader the better; there 
must be left within half a yard of the end of each plank 
half a hole, that both the planks being put together, 
there may remain two holes like those in a pair of 
stocks. There must be made, likewise, a hole in the 
cloth ; a platter having a hole of the same size in the 
middle, and having a piece taken out at one side the 
size of the neck, so that he may place his head 



THE BLACK ART. 439 

above ; must be set directly over it ; then the boy 
sitting or kneeling under the board must let the head 
only remain upon the board in the frame. To make 
the sight more dreadful, put a little brimstone into a 
chafing-dish of coals, and set it before the head of the 
boy, who must gasp two or three times that the smoke 
may enter his nostrils and mouth, and the head pres- 
ently will appear stark dead, and if a little blood be 
sprinkled on his face, the sight will appear more 
dreadful. This is commonly practised with boys in- 
structed for that purpose. At the other end of the 
table, where the other hole is made, another boy of the 
same size as the first boy must be placed, his body on 
the table and his head through the hole in the table, 
at the opposite end to where the head is which is ex- 
hibited. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



THE INDIAN BOX-AND-BASKET TRICK. 



The Indian, box-and-basket trick was for a Ions: time 
a mystery even among magicians, and now it puzzles 
astute people to understand how the young man or 
young woman who has been tied in a sack and placed 
under lock and key in a wicker basket on top of a box 
not only locked and sealed but tied in all directions 
with stout rope, can get out of the sack and basket 
and into the box within very few minutes. In 1873 
Barnum paid £1,000 to a London trickster for the so- 
called mystery. This extraordinary feat which puz- 
zled the knowing ones for so long a time was explained 
to me once by a magician, and will be found so simple 
as to astonish those who read the explanation. 

The magician begins by announcing the trick ; he 

then brings on 
the stage a large 
wooden box-like 
trunk ( Fig. 1 ) 
with hinges and 
hasps on it. A 
committee is 
audience to examine 
is no deception in its 




Fig. 1. 

generally called from 

the box to see that there 



the 



see 

apparent stoutness. They look it over and over and 
discover nothing. They then lock the box, retain the 
keys, and stop up the key-holes with sealing-wax. The 
committee also, amid the shouts of the audience to 
(440) 



THE INDIAN BOX-AND-BASKET TRICK. 



441 




" tie it up tight," wind rope around the box in all di- 
rections, making innumerable knots and using every 
effort to secure the box firmly. Then on top of the 
box is placed a board about as wide as the lid of the 
box, and on the opposite ends of which are heavy 

plate staples. 
(Fig.2.)"The 
magic i an's 
assistant now 

steps to the foot-lights and is introduced to the crowd 
he, or she, is to astonish. A sack is brought forward, 
the assistant lightly mounts to the board on top of the 
box, gets into the sack, within which there is generally 
a stool, so that the person inside may sit down. The 
magician begins to tie up the sack ; he gathers the top 
of it in his hands, and in the meantime the assistant 
thrusts through the opening a portion of another sack, 
and with his hands over his head holds in place the 
gathered end of the sack in which he is concealed 
while the magician ties a rope around the false end. 
The basket is a 
high, comical- 
shaped wicker af- 
fair, with a heavy 
ring around its 
mouth and two 
large staples at 
opposite sides. 
(Fig. 3.) When 
the basket is 
placed over the 
assistant, the sta- 
ples in its ring 
fit exactly over 

those on the Fig. 3. 

board above the box ; padlocks are passed through 




442 THE INDIAN B0X-AND-BA8KET TRICK. 

the staples and locked, the committee hold the 
key, and sealing-wax is again applied to the key- 
hole. The trick is now ready, the magician draws 
a screen across to hide the box and basket from the 
audience, and usually within two minutes the signal is 
given that the feat has been accomplished. Sometimes 
this signal is a pistol shot ; at other times a whistle. 
The screen is thrown aside, the seals on the locks are 
unbroken ; everything is in exactly the position in which 
the committee left it, the ropes remain securely tied, 
seem undisturbed, and on opening the box, which is 
still stout and innocent-looking as ever, the assistant 
tumbles out and the trick comes to an end amid the 
wild plaudits of the audience and an occasional uncom- 
plimentary hoot at the committeemen. 

How is it done? The simple-looking contrivance 
that forms the foundation of the mystery is nothing 
more or less than a trick-box. Alon^ the ed^es of the 
front, back and ends are fastened stout battens, as can 
be seen in the cut. These battens are screwed to the 
boards which form the upper part of the box. The 
lower boards at front and back and both ends are sim- 
ply sliding panels. The parts of these panels which 
come directly behind the battens are filled with iron 
plates pierced with holes of the shape to be seen in 
Fig. 4. The screws on the lower 
parts of the batten are dummies 




S 



— that is, they go only partly 
through the battens, and do 
Fi s- 4 - n ot reach the panels. On the 

inner sides of the battens are iron plates, each carry- 
ing a stud, so that when the parts of the panel plates 
marked A come directly opposite the studs of the bat- 
tens, the panel, if pressed or pushed, will fall inside 
the box ; but if the studs be pressed through A, and 



THE INDIAN BOX-AND-BASKET TRICK. 



443 



the panels shoved along so that the shanks of the studs 
slide through the slatted parts, B, the panels will be 
locked securely. The unsuspicious air-holes you see 
in the panels are there for a purpose ; the performer 
uses them to give him a purchase, so that either with 
his fingers or by means of a small iron rod he may 
slide the panels backward or forward. 

There is another piece of trickery in the construc- 
tion of the board that rests on the box and upon which 
the basket is placed. The plate staples are ' ' crooked ; " 
that is, the staples are not of a piece with the plates, 
but are separate ; they are made with a shoulder, and 
on each of the ends which fit tightly into holes through 
the plates, there is an oval-shaped hole, as shown in 
Fig. 5. Inside the board are two 
double bolts which pass through 
these holes and keep the staples 
in place. The person under the 
basket passes a thin steel blade 
between the boards and slides 
back the bolts at one end. He 
then lifts the basket, and with it 
the staple. Once outside the 
basket he replaces it -against the 
staple in the plate, pushes it Fig.6. 

down, its rounded ends acting like wedges to 
pushing the bolts back, w T hich come together again 
through the oval holes of the staple, locking it 
firmly to the board again. All that remains to be 
done, then, is to slide the panel of the box, push it 
in, creep through the closely woven ropes and inside 
the box, put the panel back in its place and the trick 
is at an end. 

Occasionally a performer does not find it as easy to 
do this trick as it reads here. He may sometimes get 




444 THE INDIAN liOX-AND-BASKET TRICK. 

stuck in the basket, or may find it impossible to get 
into the box. The sack is no trouble to him at all, 
for he is never really tied in the sack, — all he has to 
do is to crawl out of it. Carabgraba, I think it was, 
while exhibiting the Indian box-trick in Chicago at the 
Adelphi Theatre, in 1874, met with an accident that 
set the house in an uproar, and came near precipitat- 
ing a panic. His assistant, who had succeeded in get- 
ting out of the basket, snapped in two a small iron rod 
he used for sliding the panel, and despite a long and 
desperate effort could not succeed in opening the box. 
All he could do was to come from behind the screen, 
walk to the foot-lights and beg to be excused. An 
expert rope-tier had secured the box, as one of the 
committee called upon to do so, and the audience cred- 
iting the expert with the failure of the trick, cried 
fraud, and grew greatly excited. They would listen 
to no explanation until Leonard Grover, then manager 
of the Adelphi, came forward and promised that the 
trick would be performed later in the evening, and 
that, in the meantime, the box should remain in full 
sight of the audience, both of which promises were 
faithfully kept. 

As it always takes some time to do this trick, the 
magician has some kind of a " ghost story" fixed up 
to entertain his audience. An old ex-conjurer, writing 
in Scribner's MontJdy on the subject, gave the follow- 
ing talk, with which he usually diverted his patrons 
while his assistant was getting into the box : — 

"And apropos of spiritualism," I would say, " I 
will, with your permission, relate the adventure of a 
servant girl at a spiritual seance. Miss Honora Mur- 
phy, a young female engaged in the honorable and 
praiseworthy occupation of general housework merely 
to dispel ennui, not hearing in some time from the 



THE INDIAN BOX-AND-BASKET TRICK. 445 

1 b'y at home ' to whom she was engaged to he 
8 marrid,' was advised by the « gerrl next doore ' 
to consult the spirits. Miss Murphy objected at first 
on the ground that she had taken her i Father 
Matchew seventeen year afore in her parish church 
at home an' niver drunk sperrits,' but finally con- 
cluded to follow the advice. The result I shall give 
you as detailed by her to her friend :" — 

88 How kern I by the black eye? Well, dear, I'll 
tell yer. Afther what yer wnr tellin' me, I niver 
closed me eyes. The nixt mar n in' I ast Maggie Harna- 
han, the up-stairs gerrl, where was herself. ' In her 
boodoore,' sez Maggie, an' up I goes to her. 

88 ' What's wantin', 'Nora? ' sez she. 

88 * I've jist heerd as how me cousin's very sick,' 
sez I, * an' I'm that frettin', I mils' go an' see her.' 

"Fitter fur yer ter go ter yer wurruk,' sez she, 
lookin' mighty crass, an' she the lazy hulks as niver 
does a turn from mornin' till night. 

88 ' Well, dear, I niver takes sass from anny av 'em, 
so I ups an' tonld her, ' Sorra taste av wurk I'll do 
the day, an' av yer don't like it, yer can fin' some wan 
else,' an' I flounced meseF out av the boodoore." 

88 Well, I wintto me room ter dress mesel,' an' whin 
I got on me sale-shkin sack, I thought av me poor 
ould mother — may the hivins be her bed! — could 
only see me, how kilt she'd be intoirely. Whin I was 
dressed I wint down-stairs, an' out the front doore, 
an' I tell yer I slammed it well after me. 

88 Well, me dear, whin I got ter the majum's, a big 
chap wid long hair and a baird like a billy-goat kem 
inter the room. Sez he : — 

88 8 Do yer want to see the majum? ' 

88 8 1 do,' sez I. 

88 8 Two dollars/ sez he. 



446 THE INDIAN BOX-AND-BASKET TRICK. 

" 'For what? ' says I. 

" ' For the sayants,' sez he. 

" ' Faix, it's no aunts I want to see,' sez I, ' but 
Luke Corrigan's own self.' Well, me clear, wid that 
he gev a laugh ye'd think 'd riz the roof. 

" ' Is he yer husban' ? ' sez he. 

" 'It's mighty 'quisitive ye are,' sez I, 'but he's 
not me husban', av yer want ter know, but I want ter 
larn av it's alive or dead he is, which the Lord forbid !' 

" ' Yer jist in the nick er time,' sez he. 

" « Faix, Ould Nick's here all the time, I'm thinkin', 
from what 1 hear,' sez I. 

" Well, ter make a long story short, I ped me two 
dollars, an' wint into another room, an' if ye'd guess 
from now till Aisther, ye'd never think what the 
majum was. As I'm standin' here, 'twas nothiii* but 
a woman! I was that bet, I was a'most spacheless. 

" 'Be sated, madam,' sez she, p'ntin' to a chair, 
an' I seed at wanst that she was a very shuperior sort 
o' person. ' Be sated,' sez she. ' Yer mus' jine the 
circle.' 

" ' Faix, I'll ate a thriangle, av yer wish,' sez I. 

" 'Yer mus' be very quite,' sez she. An' so I sot 
down along a lot av other folks at a table. 

" 'First, I'll sing a him,' sez the majum, 'an' thin 
do all yees jiue in the chorus.' 

"'Yer mus' axcuse me, ma'am.' sez I. 'I niver 
could sing, but rather than spile the divarshun o' the 
company, av any wan' 11 whistle, I'll dance as purty a 
jig as ye'll see from here to Bal'nasloe, though it's 
mesel' as sez it.' 

" Two young whipper-snappers begin ter laugh, but 
the luk I gev' em soon shut 'em up 

" Jist then, the big chap as had me two dollars kem 



THti INDIAN' BOX-AXD-BASKET TKICK. 447 

into the room an' turned down the lights ; in a minit 
majum, shtickin' her fuce close to me own, whispers: 

" ' The sperrits is about — I kin feel 'em ! ' 

" ' Thrue for you, ma'am,' scz I, « fur I kin smell 
'em ! ' 

"'Hush, the in^wence is an me,' sez the majum. 
' I kin see the lion an' the lamb lying down together.' 

" ' Beirorra ! It's like a wild beastess show,' sez I. 

"'Will yer be quite?' scz an ould chap nex' ter 
me. ' I hev a question to ax. 

" * Ax yer question,' say I, « an' I'll ax mine. I 
ped me two dollars, an' III not be put down.' 

" ' Plaze be quite,' sez the majum, ' or the sperrits 
'11 lave.' 

" Jist then kem a rap on the table. 

" ' Is that the sperrit of Luke Corrigan?' sez the 
majum. 

" ' It is not,' sez I, ' for he could bate any boy in 
Kilballyoweu, an' if his fist hit that table 'twould 
knock it to smithereens.' 

" ' Whist? ' sez the majum ; ' it's John's Bunions.' 

" 'Ax him 'bout his progress,' sez a woman wid a 
face like a bowl of stirabout. 

" 'Ah, bathe rsh in ! ' sez I. 'Let John's bunions 
alone and bring Luke Corrigan to the fore.' 

" ' Hish ! ' whispers the majum ; ' I feel a sperrit 
nare me.' 

" ' Feel av it has a wart on its nose,' sez I, ' for be 
that token ye'll know it's Luke.' 

" ' The moment is suspicious,' says the majum. 

" ' I hope yer don't want to asperge me character,' 
sez I. 

" ' Whist ! ' sez she ; ' the sperrits is droopin.' 

" ' It's droppin' yer mane,' sez I, pickin' up a 
small bottle she let fall from her pocket. 



448 THE INDIAN BOX-AND-BASKET TRICK. 

" ' Put that woman out,' sez an oulcl chap. 

" ' Who do ye call a woman ? ' sez I. ' Lay a finger 
on me, an' I'll scratch a map of the County Clare on 
yer ugly phiz.' 

" * Put her out ! ' ' Put her out ! ' sez two or three 
others, an' they med a lep for me. But, holy rocket ! 
I was up in a minute. 

" 'Bring an yer fightin' sperrits,' I cried, "from 
Julus Sazar to Tim Maconle, an' I'll bate 'em all fur the 
glory av ould Ireland ! ' 

" The big chap as had me money kem behin' me, an' 
put his elbow in me eye ; but me jewel, I tassed him 
over as if he bin a feather, an' the money rowled out 
his pocket. Wid a cry av ' Faugh-a-ballah ! ' I grab- 
bed six dollars, runned out av the doore, an' I'll never 
put fut in the house ag'in. An' that's how I kem be 
the eye." 

A story like this gives the magician's assistant plenty 
of time to work the trick. Sometimes a magician 
whose confidence in his assistant is not strong, or 
whose paraphernalia is limited, will have only the box, 
and will satisfy himself with merely " tying " his as- 
sistant in a sack on top of the box. This way the 
trick is surer and a great deal easier than when the 
basket is used. 



CHAPTER XXXII, 



VENTRILOQUISM, 



All who have heard Prof. Kennedy or Val Vose 
with their funny little figures have wondered how they 
managed to produce such an effect upon their au- 
dience — to completely delude them into the belief 
that the speech came from the moving lips of the lit- 
tle wooden heads and not from the closed and motion- 
less labials of the ventriloquists. Both gentlemen are 
thoroughly familiar with their art, and the entertain- 
ment they give may be taken as a sample of the pos- 
sibilities of ventriloquism. The history of the art goes 
back to Biblical times, but not until the eighteenth cen- 
tury have we anecdotes of the remarkable performances 
of men endowed with the gift. The earliest notice of 
the illusion, as carried out in modern times, has refer- 
ence to Louis Brabant valet de chambre to Francis I. 
Having been rejected by the parents of a rich heiress 
he wished to wed, he waited until the father was dead ; 
then he visited the widow, whom he caused to hear 
the voice of her husband coming from above com- 
manding her to give their daughter in marriage to 
Louis, that he (the father) might be relieved from pur- 
gatory. The widow was only too glad to comply. 
Now, Louis wanted a wedding portion, so he went to 
one Cornu, a rich, miserly, and usurious banker at 
Lyons, whom he terrified into giving him ten thou- 
sand crowns by the old trick of parent and purgatory. 

The works of M. L'Abbe La Chapelle, issued 1772, 
29 (449) 



450 VENTRILOQUISM. 

contain descriptions of the ventriloquial achievements 
of Baron Mengen at Vienna ; and those of M. St. Gille, 
near Paris, are equally interesting and astonishing. 
The former ingeniously constructed a doll with moveable 
lips, which he could readily control by a movement of 
the fingers under the dress ; and with this automaton 
he was accustomed to hold humorous and satirical dia- 
logues. He ascribed proficiency in his art to the fre- 
quent gratification of a propensity for counterfeiting 
the cries of the lower animals, and the voices of per- 
sons with whom he was in contact. 

LaChapelle, having heard many surprising circum- 
stances related concerning one M. St. Gille, a grocer 
at St. Germainen-Laye, near Paris, whose powers as a 
ventriloquist had given occasion to many singular and 
diverting scenes, formed the resolution of seeing him. 
Being seated with him on the opposite side of a fire, in a 
parlor on the ground floor, and very attentively observ- 
ing him, the Abbe, after half an hour's conversation 
with M. St. Gille, heard himself called, on a sudden, 
by bis name and title, in a voice that seemed to come 
from the roof of a house at a distance ; and whilst he 
was pointing to the house from which the voice had 
appeared to him to proceed, he was yet more surprised 
at hearing the words, " it was not from that quarter," 
apparently in the same kind of voice as before, but 
which now seemed to issue from under the earth at 
one of the corners of the room. In short, this fic- 
titious voice played, as it were, everywhere about him, 
and seemed to proceed from any quarter or distance 
from which the operator chose to transmit it to him. 
To the Abbe, though conscious that the voice proceeded 
from the mouth of M. St. Gille, he appeared abso- 
lutely mute while he was exercising his talent ; nor 
could any change in his countenance be discovered. 



VENTRILOQUISM. 451 

But he observed that M. St. Gille presented only the 
profile of his face to him while he was speaking as a 
ventriloquist. 

On another occasion, M. St. Gille sought for shelter 
from a storm in a neighboring convent ; and finding 
the community in mourning, and inquiring the cause, 
he was told that one of their body, much esteemed by 
them, had lately died. Some of their religious brethren 
attended him to the church, and showing him the tomb 
of their deceased brother, spoke very feelingly of the 
scanty honors that had been bestowed on his memory, 
when suddenly a voice was heard, apparently proceed- 
ing from the roof of the choir, lamenting the situa- 
tion of the defunct in purgatory, and reproaching the 
brotherhood with their want of zeal on his account. 
The whole community being afterwards convened in 
the church, the voice from the roof renewed its la- 
mentations and reproaches, and the whole convent fell 
on their faces, and vowed a solemn reparation. Ac- 
cordingly, they first chanted a De profuudis in full 
choir ; during the intervals of which the ghost occa- 
sionally expressed the comfort he received from their 
pious exercises and ejaculations in his behalf. The 
prior, when this religious service was concluded, en- 
tered into a serious conversation with M. St. Gille, 
and inveighed against the incredulity of our modern 
sceptics and pretended philosophers on the article of 
ghosts and apparitions ; and St. Gille found it difficult 
to convince the fathers that the whole was a deception. 

M. Alexandre, the noted ventriloquist, had an extra- 
ordinary facility in counterfeiting the faces of other 
people. At Abbotsford, during a visit there, he actu- 
ally sat to a sculptor five times in the character of a 
noted clergyman, with whose real features the sculp- 
tor was well acquainted. When the sittings were 



452 VENTRILOQUISM. 

closed and the bust modelled, the mimic cast off his 
wig and assumed dress, and appeared with his own 
natural countenance, to the terror almost of the sculp- 
tor, and to the great amusement of Sir Walter Scott 
and others who had been in the secret. 

Of this most celebrated ventriloquist it is related 
that on one occasion he was passing along the Strand, 
when a friend desired a specimen of his abilities. At 
this instant a load of hay was passing along near Tem- 
ple Bar, when Alexandre called attention to the suffo- 
cating cries of a man in the centre of the hay. A 
crowd gathered round and stopped the astonished 
carter, and demanded why he was carrying a fellow- 
creature in his hay. The complaints and cries of the 
smothered man now became painful, and there was 
every reason to believe that he was djnng. The 
crowd, regardless of the stoppage to the traffic, in- 
stantly proceeded to unload the hay into the street. 
The smothered voice urged them to make haste ; but 
the feelings of the people may be imagined when the 
cart was empty and nobody was found, while Alexan- 
dre and his friend walked off laughing at the unex- 
pected results of their trick. 

The individual who wishes to know anything about 
this wonderful art must learn to distinguish distances, 
and be able, by giving the proper pitch to the voice, to 
make it reach exactly to the point indicated. He 
must also know that the attention of the audience 
should be directed either by the eyes or a gesture of the 
hand to -the spot whence the voice is supposed to issue. 
In order to cover the features of any modern ventrilo- 
quial entertainment, I will here give the rules for the 
two voices required, with an example of the dialogue 
in each case, 



VENTRILOQUISM. 453 



VOICE I. 



The first is the voice in which Frederic Maccabe 
excelled. To acquire this voice, speak one word or 
sentence in your own natural tones ; then open the 
mouth and fix the jaws fast, as though you were trying 
to hinder anyone from opening them farther, or shut- 
ting them ; draw the tongue back in a ball ; speak the 
same words, and the sound, instead of being formed in 
the mouth will be formed in the pharynx. Great at- 
tention must be paid to holding the jaws rigid. The 
sound will then be found to imitate a voice heard from 
the other side of a door when it is closed, or under a 
floor, or through a wall. To ventriloquize with this 
voice, let the operator stand with his_back to 'the audi- 
ence against a door. Give a gentle tap at the door, 
and call aloud in a natural voice, inquiring, " Who is 
there?" This will have the effect of dra wins; the at- 
tention of the audience to the person supposed to be 
outside. Then fix the jaw as described, and utter in 
voice No. 1 (explained above) any words you please, 
such as, "I want to come in." Ask questions in the 
natural voice and answer in the other. When you 
have done this, open the door a little, and hold a con- 
versation with the imaginary person. As the door is 
now open, it is obvious that the voice must be altered, 
for a voice will not sound to the ear when a door is 
open the same as when closed. Therefore, the voice 
must be made to appear face to face, or close to the 
ventriloquist. To do this the voice must be altered 
from the original note or pitch, but be made in an- 
other part of the mouth. This is done by closing the 
lips tight and drawing one corner of the mouth down- 
wards, or towards the ear. Then let the lips open at 
that corner only, the other part to remain closed. 



454 VENTRILOQUISM. 

Next breathe, as it were, the words out of the orifice 
formed. Do not speak distinctly, but expel the 
breath in short puffs at each word, and as loud as pos- 
sible. By so doing you will cause the illusion in the 
mind of the listeners, that they hear the same voice 
which they heard when the door was closed, but which 
is now heard more distinctly and nearer, on account of 
the door being open. This voice must always be used 
when the ventriloquist wishes it to appear that the 
sound comes from some one close at hand, but through 
an obstacle. The description of voice and dialogue 
may be varied, as in the following example : — 

THE SUFFOCATED VICTIM. 

A large box or close cupboard is used indiscrimi- 
nately, as it may be handy. The student will rap or 
kick the box apparently by accident. The voice will 
then utter a hoarse and subdued groan, apparently 
from the box or closet. 

Student (pointing to the box with an air of astonish- 
ment) : What is that? 

Voice : I won't do so any more. I am nearly dead. 

Student : Who are you ? How came you there ? 

Voice: I only wanted to see what was going on. 
Let me out, do. 

Student : But I don't know who you are. 

Voice : Oh yes, you do. 

Student : Who are you? 

Voice : Your old schoolfellow, Tom . You 

know me. 

Student: Why, he's in Canada. 

Voice (sharply) : No he ain't, he's here; but be 
quick. 



VENTRILOQUISM. 455 

Student (opening the lid) : Perhaps he's come by 
the underground railroad ? Hallo ! 

Voice (not so muffled, as described in directions : 
Now then, give us a hand. 

Student ("closing the lid or door sharply) : No, I 
won't. 

Voice (as before) : Have pity (Tom, or Jack, or 
Mr. . as the case may be), or I shall be choked. 

Student : I don't believe you are what you say. 

Voice : Why don't you let me out and see before I 
am dead ? 

Student (opening and shutting the lid and varying 
the voice accordingly) •* Dead ! not you. "When did 
you leave Canada? 

Voice : Last week. Oh ! I am choking. 

Student: Shall I let him out? (opening the door.) 
There's no one here. 

VOICE II. 

The second voice is the more easy to be acquired. 
It is the voice by which all ventriloquists make a sup- 
posed person speak from a long distance, or from, or 
through the ceiling. In the first place, with your back 
to the audience, direct their attention to the ceiling by 
pointing to it or by looking intently at it. Call loudly, 
and ask some question, as though you believed some 
person to be concealed there. Make your own voice 
very distinct, and as near the lips as possible, inas- 
much as that will help the illusion. Then in exactly 
the same tone and pitch answer ; but, in order that the 
same voice may seem to proceed from the point indi- 
cated, the words must be formed at the back part of 
the roof of the mouth. To do this the lower jaw 
must be drawn back and held there, the mouth open, 
which will cause the palate to be elevated and drawn 



456 VENTRILOQUISM. 

nearer to the pharynx, and the sound will be reflected 
in that cavity, and appear to come from the roof. Too 
much attention cannot be paid to the manner in which 
the breath is used in this voice. When speaking to 
the supposed person, expel the words with a deep, 
quick breath. 

When answering in the imitative manner, the breath 
must be held back and expelled very slowly, and the 
voice will come in a subdued and muffled manner, little 
above a whisper, but so as to be well distinguished. 
To cause the supposed voice to come nearer by de- 
grees,, call loudly, and say, " I want you down here," 
or words to that effect. At the same time make a mo- 
tion downwards with your hand. Hold some conver- 
sation with the voice and cause it to say, " I am 
coming," or " Here I am," each time indicating the 
descent with the hand. When the voice is supposed 
to approach nearer, the sound must alter, to denote 
the progress of the movement. Therefore let the 
voice at every supposed step, roll, as it were, by de- 
grees, from the pharynx more into the cavity of the 
mouth, and at each supposed step, contracting the 
opening of the mouth, until the lips are drawn up as if 
you were whistling. By so doing the cavity of the 
mouth will be very much enlarged. This will cause 
the voice to be obscured, and so appear to come nearer 
by degrees. At the same time, care must be taken 
not to articulate the consonant sounds plainly, as that 
would cause the disarrangement of the lips and cavity 
of the mouth ; and in all imitative voices the conso- 
nants must scarcely be articulated at all, especially if 
the ventriloquist faces the audience. For example : 
suppose the imitative voice is made to say, "Mind 
what you are doing, you bad boy," it must be spoken, 
as if it were written, " 'ind 'ot you're doing, you 'ad 



VENTRILOQUISM. 457 

whoy." This kind of articulation may be practised 
by forming the words in the pharynx, and then send- 
ing them out of the mouth by sudden expulsions of the 
breath clean from the lungs at every word. This is 
most useful in ventriloquism, and to illustrate it we 
will take the man on the roof as an illustration. This 
is an example almost invariably successful, and is con- 
stantly used by skilled professors of the art. As we 
have before repeatedly intimated, the eyes and atten- 
tion of the audience must be directed to the supposed 
spot from whence the illusive voice is supposed to pro- 
ceed : — 

Student: Are you up there, Jem? 

Voice: Hallo! who's that? 

Student : It's I ! Are you nearly finished? 

Voice : Only three more slates to put on, master. 

Student : I want you here, Jem. 

Voice : I am coming directly. 

Student : Which way, Jem? 

Voice : Over the roof and down the trap. (Voice is 
supposed to be moving, as the student turns and points 
with his finger.) 

Student: Which way? 

Voice (nearer) : Through the trap and down the 
stairs. 

Student : How long shall you be ? 

Voice : Only a few minutes. I am coming as fast as 
I can. 

The voice now approaches the door, and is taken up 
by the same tone, but produced as in the first voice. 
* * * * * 

I have room to add only a few potyphonic imita- 
tions. To imitate the tormenting bee, the student 
must use considerable pressure on his chest, as if he 
was about to groan suddenly, but instead of which, the 



45$ Ventriloquism. 

sound must be confined and prolonged in the throat : 
the greater. the pressure, the higher will be the faint 
note produced, and which will perfectly resemble the 
buzzing of the bee or wasp. Now, to imitate the 
buzzing of a bluebottle fly, it will be necessary for the 
sound to be made with the lips instead of the throat; 
this is done by closing the lips very tight, except at 
one corner, where a small aperture is left ; fill that 
cheek full of wind, but not the other, then slowly 
blow or force the wind contained in the cheek out of 
the aperture : if this is done properly, it will cause a 
sound exactly like the buzzing of a bluebottle fly. 

The noise caused by planing and sawing wood can 
also be imitated without much difficulty, and it causes 
a great deal of amusement. The student must, how- 
ever, bear in mind that every action must be imitated 
as well as the noise, for the eye assists to delude the 
ear. We have even seen ventriloquists carry this eye 
deception so far as to have a few shavings to scatter 
as they proceed, and a piece of wood to fall when the 
sawing is ended. To imitate planing, the student 
must stand at a table a little distance from the audi- 
ence, and appear to take hold of a plane and push it 
forward : the sound as of a plane is made as though 
you were dwelling on the last part of the word hush — 
dwell upon the sh a little, as tsh, and then clip it short 
by causing the tongue to close with the palate, then 
over again. Letters will not convey the peculiar sound 
of sawing — it must be studied from nature. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

" ON THE ROAD." 

Theatrical life is full enough of business and bustle, 
even when a company is playing a long engagement in 
a large city ; but when " on the road," travelling from 
town to town — playing here a week and there a week, 
with one-night stands in the intervening "villages," 
actors aud managers find it no easy task to retain their 
health and spirits, and keep up with their " dates ; " 
and with all but a few organizations located almost 
permanently in New York, thus flitting from place to 
place — a round of anxiety and railroad experiences 
that lasts through forty weeks of each year — makes 
up the easy, glorious, and blissful existence that so 
many people outside of the profession imagine is the 
unalloyed portion of those who are in it. 

As much of the business of a company's season as 
can be arranged in New York during the summer, is 
attended to by the manager. He meets the prominent 
theatrical managers of the country on " The Square " 
and makes dates at their respective houses for his at- 
traction. Having located his route as to the large cities 
he proceeds to fill in the intervals with one or two- 
night stands in smaller places, aud this being done he 
and his company are ready to take the road just as 
soon as the season begins. The contracts for cities 
like Chicago, Cincinnati, Louisville, New Orleans, and 
St. Louis are made and signed in New York during 

(459) " 



460 ON THE ROAD. 

the summer vacation. The others are completed while 
the company is on the road. 

Ahead of every attraction is a press agent, herald, 
avant-courier, or, as he began to call himself two 
years ago, a business manager. When he invades a 
town the first place he makes a rush for is the most 
available opera house or hall, with the proprietor of 
which he makes a contract like the following : — 

Belleville, III. 1882. 

This is to certify that I have rented the hall (room 

or theatre) known as to the Madison 

Square Theatre Company for night , 

viz for the sum of 

dollars per night, which includes license, stage hands, 
ushers, ticket-seller, etc. Said hall, passage-way, and 
stage to be well lighted, and also to be kept clean and 
well warmed, with services of janitor and privilege of 
matinee included. 
Signed : 

Lessee. 

Witness : 

Business Manager. 



Numerous other contracts are made, — for hauling 
baggage, for carriages and omnibus, for orchestra, 
etc. The hotel contract, which is as follows, is very 
explicit : — 

" This is to certify that the landlord of. . . 

. . .' does hereby agree with the Agent of the 

Madison Square Theatre Company to board and lodge 

the said company, consisting of persons, more 

or less, for days, more or less, at the rate 

of cents per day for each person. Three 

meals and one (night's) lodging to constitute a day's 



ON THE ROAD. 461 

board, and for any time less than one day the charge 
shall be at the same rate per diem as is above men- 
tioned. Fires to be furnished at cents 

per each room. No charge to be made under the 
above agreement providing the party see fit to go else- 
where. Agent to be kept at same rates. 

Landlord." 

Having got through with making contracts the agent 

o © © © © 

begins to " bill the town." The amount of billing 

© © 

that is done depends largely upon the reputation of 
the star or attraction, and the manner in which the 
newspapers have been worked. An actress like Mary 
Anderson puts out but about one hundred three-sheet 
bills — -a three-sheet bill being the ordinary poster 
that is seen upon a single bill-board — in any of the 
large cities. Sarah Bernhardt and Adelina Patti, who 
were kept before the public by the press for many 
months before they came to this country, needed but 
a few three-sheet bills and a simple announcement of 
their coming in the newspapers. Mrs. Langtry, 
Christine Nilsson, and Henry Irving will be billed in 
the same economical way when they reach our shores. 
Edwin Booth and John McCullough, like Mary Ander- 
son, use only a small quantity of three-sheet bills for 
advertising on the walls. These people require few 
lithographs, and are likewise fortunate in not being re- 
quired to buy large space in the papers. Nearly all 
the minor melodramatic and comedy attractions take 
to the circus style of advertising. Charles L. Davis, of 
"Alvin Joslyn" fame, who wears the largest diamond 
and carries the finest watch in the profession, boasts 
that he always likes to bill against a circus. When he 
was in St. Louis during the season of 1881-2, Mr. 
W, E. Cottrell, the city bill-poster, told me that JDavis 



462 OX THE ROAD. 

put out about four thousand sheets, aad everlastingly 
sprinkled the windows with colored lithographs. Mr. 
Oottrell also told me that this does not approach the 
lavishness of circuses in decorating the fences and 
walls and bill-boards of cities. These latter usually 
put out not less than ten thousand sheets, and the 
Great London Show a few seasons ago would spread 
from eighteen to twenty thousand sheets before the 
eyes of a city having a population of four hundred 
thousand. The bill-poster gets three cents per sheet for 
posting, and $1 per hundred for distributing litho- 
graphs, so that, as will be understood, a circus or a 
theatrical attraction like Charles L. Davis is a bonanza 
to the bill-poster. 

From the big type of the bill-boards the advance 
agent naturally turns his attention to the smaller, but 
probably more effective, type of the newspaper. He 
rushes into the editorial rooms like a whirlwind, if he 
is a cyclonic agent, asks in a voice of thunder for the 
dramatic critic, and when that gentleman is pointed 
out, after depositing a gilt-edged card and bestrewing 
the journalist's desk with a mass of notices from the 
Oakland Bugle, the Bragtown Boomerang, and forty 
other equally important and severely critical journals, 
proceeds to talk so loudly that he disturbs all the 
writers in the room, and has the managing editor on 
the point nineteen times out of twenty of ordering him 
out of the office. 

" I tell you what, my boy," he shouts, " we just 
laid 'em out cold in Pilot Knob last night. Just got a 
telegram from the manager. See here : * House 
jammed to the doors ; hundreds turned away ; great 
enthusiasm ; big sales to-morrow night.' Now that's no 
gag, but the dead square, bang-up truth, s'elp me 
God." 



ON THE ROAD. 463 

" I see the Horse-Tail Bar Sentinel gives you folks 
fits," the dramatic critic quietly suggests. " It says 
your play is bad and your company worse — how is 
that?" 

" Oh that fellow is a bloody duffer," the agent re- 
plies at the top of his voice. " Tell you the truth, we 
had a little trouble with him about comps. He wanted 
a bushel of 'em, and because we wouldn't give 'em up 
blasted us. But we did a rattling good business all 
the same, and don't you forget it? " 

And in this way the cyclonic agent rattles along, 
tormenting everybody within hearing distance until he 
gets ready to go ; and when he is gone there is a sigh 
of relief ^all around the office. The managing editor 
comes out and asks the dramatic critic: — 

" Who was that d— d fool? " 

"The agent of the Doorstep Comic Opera Com- 
pany," the dramatic critic replies. 

" Well, the next time he comes in here just tell him 
this is not a deaf and dumb asylum. We don't want 
any serenades from side-show blowers. Don't give 
his d — d old company more than two lines, and make 
it less than that if you can." 

Fortunately for the profession this style of advance 
agent is dying out, and men who understand news- 
papers better are coming in. There are many real 
gentlemen, clever, quiet and effective, in the business, 
like Mr. E. D. Price, formerly of the Detroit Post 
and Tribune; Frank Farrell, who graduated from the 
New Orleans Times office, and others who have for- 
saken journalism for the equally arduous, but more 
lucrative positions that enterprising and long-headed 
theatrical managers offer them. 

The advance agent sees that the hall or theatre is in 
proper condition, looks after the sale of reserved seats, 



464 ON THE ROAD. 

distributes his " conips " as judiciously as circum- 
stances will allow, and confronts everywhere he goes 
the cunning and omnipresent dead-head — that abomi- 
nation of the show business who will spend $5 with an 
agent to get a free ticket from him, when admission 
and a reserved seat may be purchased for $1. If the 
dead-head fails to circumvent the agent he quietly 
awaits the coming of the company, when he lies in am- 
bush for the manager, of whom he demands a pass or 
his life. In fact, the manager often has to undo a 
great deal that his agent has done in a town, and to do 
over again much that the avant- courier had seemingly 
done in a satisfactory manner. The company, too, 
frequently find the way not so smooth or pleasant as 
the agent has represented it to be : the hall or theatre 
in which the performance is to be given is often a 
dingy, dismal place that is not only without conven- 
iences of any kind, but what is worse, may not be 
proof against anything like demonstrative weather ; 
the hotel fare is bad, and the accommodations no bet- 
ter ; the mayor, the town council, and sometimes the 
prominent citizens, must have free passes ; the local 
papers want hatfuls of complimentary tickets, and 
with a house half filled with dead-heads and one-third 
of the benches empty, they must, in the face of most 
discouraging circumstances, appear as entertainers or 
meet with the severest denunciations of the pigmy 
press and the most galling criticism from the ungrate- 
ful army of dead-heads. 

Now and then an actor or an actress contracts a cold 
during a barn-storming tour, and the nomadic life not 
being calculated to aid the healing power of medicines, 
the seeds of death are sown, and soon the played-out 
player sinks from sight, and without causing a single 
ripple upon the surface of the great sea of life, goes 



ON THE ROAD, 



465 



down to the grave. -The agent and the manager, too, 
share this danger, and altogether the life of profes- 




sional people when " on the road " is not so bright or 
joyful as to cause any one acquainted with their trials 
and troubles to envy them their lot. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 



THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 

To the outside world the player's life seems always 
bright — a rose-carpeted path with sunshine forever 
straying about the feet and breath of the sweetest 
gardens always in their atmosphere. To the players 
themselves, notwithstanding the hard work, it has the 
same beauty and fascinations that other professions 
have for those who have entered them. Lotta receiv- 
ing the wild plaudits of her newsboy admirers — for 
all over the country the street Arabs express their 
willingness to " do ennythin' in de world fur Lottie " — 
accepting the baskets of flowers they send her with the 
pennies they have pooled, and doing her utmost to re- 
spond to a score of encores in response to their appeals 
is as charming a little picture of perfect happiness and 
contentment as we could find anywhere. Judic, the 
great opera boufle singer, peddling cherries, at the 
great charity fair in Paris, from two panniers borne by 
a jackass, crying, " Buy my cherries, monsieur. I 
don't sell them dear. Five francs, the little basket," 
is a noble example of the generosity that distinguishes 
the profession of which she is a member. A popular 
American actress selling photographs for a little crip- 
ple she met in the street, and who had been rebuffed 
at several, is another example of the leaning towards 
charity and the kind-heartedness of a class of people 
against whom manv bigots raise their hands and to 
whom they turn their backs, saying, as the Rev. Mr. 

(466) 



THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 4()7 

Sabini said, that he didn't want to have anything to do 
with actors. The reader has probably heard the story, 
but I will repeat it here : George Holland , the actor, died 
in his eightieth year, on December 20, 1870. He was a 
player of exceeding merit in his day, and his demise 
was widely and deeply regretted. Friends gathered 
around his casket in the awful moment when they were 
to part with him forever. The rites of the church were 
wanted for him, of course, and an actor friend went to 
Rev. Sabini and asked him to officiate. He declined, 
saying : "I want to have nothing to do with an actor. 
There is a little place around the corner were they do 
these things." And sure enough there was, and the 
actors took their dead friend into " the little place 
around the corner," and Dr. Houghton said the last 
prayer over the dead player. That "place" is now 
known among actors and by the public too as "the 
little church around the corner." It is the Church of 
the Transfiguration, and is on Twenty-ninth Street 
near Madison Avenue. 

It is only occasionally that scandal is given by the 
theatrical profession, but these few and far-between 
occasions are sufficient to keep alive the bad opinion 
that certain people have of actors and actresses. It 
is true the class is weak at many points, as are other 
classes, but as I have urged before, they maintain 
a higher standard of morality and adorn their circle 
better than any other people whose paths are strewn as 
plentifully with temptations. At the beginning of the 
eighteenth century the stage was in very bad condi- 
tion because society was in a worse condition, and if 
there is frailty in the ranks of actresses of to-day, and 
weaknesses among actors, it is because their sur- 
roundings compel them to be what they are, and even 
under this compulsion they can hold their heads 



468 THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 

as high as their neighbors and look them in the 
face without feeling that they are any worse than the 
rest of the world, even if they are so bad. It is my 
purpose to say something about the dark side of the- 
atrical life that the reader may see just what there is 
in the talk indulged by the scandal-mongers of the 
anti-theatrical class, and that it may be known that 
their indiscretions and their sins are no more heinous 
than the sins and transgressions of other people, and 
that in very few instances are they the outcome of the 
actor or actress's professional surroundings. 

The estrangement of Edwin Booth and his wife or 
the divorce of Edwin Forrest from his wife did not 
cause the world to think any the less of these gentle- 
men as actors, and the events did not bring any op- 
probrium upon the profession. Sarah Bernhardt' s 
open avowal that her children were fatherless and they 
were only " accidents " was a frank confession of an 
early indiscretion that almost everybody was ready to 
forgive. She was not received by society in this coun- 
try, but society knelt before her at the shrine of 
Thespis, as they did at the feet of Mme. Patti, who 
flaunted Nicolini in the face of the public, as the suc- 
cessor of the Marquis de Caux in all the rights of a 
husband although there never had been any marriage 
ceremony to make the tenor the legal companion of 
the beautiful diva. For the sake of their art the sins 
of these two gifted women were partially forgotten, 
and while society could not open its doors to Mdlle. 
Bernhardt or Mme. Patti, it went readily to the open 
doors through which the presence of the actress and of 
the songstress was to be reached. 

A New York correspondent says: "Having men- 
tioned two French actresses, let me drop into the true 
story of Bernhardt and Colombier's quarrel, and the 



THK GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 4G9 

book about America which has been put forth in Colom- 
bier' s name. When Bernhardt came over here, she 
was accompanied by Jehan Soudan, a Parisian writer. 
He was very small, closely buttoned up to the neck, 
very bushy haired, and very much like a particularly 
mild and girlish divinity student. For all that, he was 
the accredited temporary lover of Bernhardt. His 
other errand was to write an account of her tour, to 
be published as from her own pen. While in this city 
he was an object of considerable ridicule, and his name 
was maltreated from Jehan Soudan into Sudden 
Johnny. But Colombier, the fair and fat actress of 
Bernhardt' s company, did not regard him as comic. 
Quite on the contrary, she fell in love with him, and 
he fell in love with her. However, this new reciproc- 
ity of hearts was kept hidden until near the end of 
the .journey. Then it came out through Sudden 
Johnny carelessly kissing Colombier too loud in a thin- 
partitioned dressing-room. The smack was heard by 
Bernhardt. I don't imagine that she cared much for 
Johnny, or would have missed him from the ranks of 
her favored admirers ; but it made her just as mad 
as she could be to lose him to Colombier. Nov/, 
Colombier' s beauty was marred by a deflection of her 
nose to one side. That's not much, for the chances 
are ten to one that the sides of your own face don't 
exactly agree. Try a glass critically, and see. Well, 
when Colombier emerged from her room with Johnny, 
to go on the stage, Sarah regarded her quizzically, and 
then said something in French equivalent to : — 

" 'Ah, my dear, I fear you kiss too much on one side 
of your mouth. It has really and truly bent your nose 
awry. Do let the other side have some of Jehan' s 
attention o' 

"No more was said. But that Johnny and Colom- 



470 THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 

bier plotted a deep revenge is evident, for the book 
appears in Paris with the name of Colombier instead 
of Bernhardt as author, and among its numerous 
ridiculous lies about Americans are some spiteful little 
flings at Sarah. Thus Sudden Johnny gets even." 

Mine. Patti, too, had a young man with her — Michael 
Mortier, brother of the editor of the Paris Figaro — 
who was to write a book for her, but in St. Louis he 
spoke two freely to a newspaper reporter about Mme. 
Patti' s relations to Nicolini, and Mortier' s life was there- 
after made so miserable that he was glad soon to make 
a bee line for Paris r where it is to be hoped he is at 
present. 

A London correspondent tells us how a favorite 
actress of that place faced three husbands, and as it is 
in order to continue turning the crank of the scandal 
machine while foreign talent is the material to be 
ground, I will give the paragraph. He says : " The 
true glory of the Lyceum Theatre is that English Bern- 
hardt, Miss Ellen Terry. This blue-eyed, blonde- 
locked, Saxon siren is not a radiant beauty as was the 
ill-fated Adelaide Neilson, but she is something better — 
she is a charmeuse, as the French call any one pos- 
sessing that peculiar feminine — which she exercises so 
powerfuly — magnetism. She is the most gifted, 
and withal the most naturally graceful, woman that I 
have ever seen. The little movements and artistic 
attitudes of Sarah Bernhardt would seem forced and 
artificial beside that unborn charm and harmony of 
gesture, unstudied and perfect as the ripple of tall 
grasses or the swaying of the branches of a weeping 
willow beneath a summer breeze. She is pure 
womanly, every inch of her. She cannot be awkward 
even when she tries ; and I saw her try the other night 
in * The Belle's Stratagem ;' but instead of transform- 



THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 471 

ing Letitia Handy into a country hoyden in accordance 
with the text, she only succeeded in assuming a pretty 
espieglerie that, had I been Doricourt, would have 
driven me to catch her straightway in my arms and 
kiss her, declaring that she was charming anyhow. Off 
the stage I am told that she is quite as fascinating as 
when before the foot-lights. She has proved the extent 
of her power of enchantment by successfully winning 
and wedding three husbands, all of whom are still 
living, divorce and not death having released her from 
two of them. In fact, it is reported that while walking 
in the Grosvenor Gallery recently, with her present 
spouse, Mr. Kelly, she came face to face with her two 
former husbands, who were promenading there to- 
gether, and that the only embarrassed personage of 
the quartette was Mr. Kelly ; and they do say that the 
law will soon be called into requisition to break the 
bonds that unite her to her present spouse, and that 
she will then become the wife of a prominent English 
actor. Truly this wonderful and interesting lady 
ought to inscribe on her wedding-ring the motto said 
to have been adopted by the old Countess of Desmond 
on the occasion of her fourth marriage : — 

If I survive 
I'll have five. 

Jealousy is at the bottom of nearly every scandal 
connected with the stage, or with people who have 
been on the stage. The story of Lizzie McCall's 
crime is a peculiarly sad one. She had been a favorite 
burlesque actress, and was playing young heroines with 
Boucicault in 1880 when she met and married George 
Barry "Wall, a young man of twenty-five years, she 
being twenty-three. She promised him to leave the 
stage forever, and in order that she might not be 



472 THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 

placed in the way of temptation Wall made his home 




in New Utrecht, Long Island, removing thence to New 
York. Jealousy early made its appearance in their 



THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 473 

home, and their married life was not happy or peaceful. 
They lived together for eighteen months, however, until 
one fine morning after a violent quarrel she snatched 
up a pistol and shot her husband through the throat. 

A Russian theatre not long since was the scene of a 
real drama which deserves a place among the serious 
accidents of the stage. The two leading actresses 
were Frenchwomen who had come to St. Petersburg 
together as friends. They had occupied the same 
house, and lived on terms of the warmest intimacy 
for some time. Then a young swell, who had enrolled 
himself among the admirers of one of them, began to 
pay court to the other. The consequence was a jeal- 
ousy which finally led to a separation of the whilom 
friends. They remained members of the same com- 
pany, however, and their jealousies found vent about 
the theatre. One night after a dinner washed down 
with much champagne, the jilted actress became very 
violent, and attempted to assault her rival in her 
dressing-room. She was prevented, and went off 
threatening vengeance. The course of the piece 
brought them together in an impassioned scene, in 
the conclusion of which the one had to warn the other 
off with a dagger. Heated with wine, her jealousy 
inflamed by the presence of her faithless lover in a 
stage box, the jilted artiste lost control of herself, and 
instead of a warning, dealt her rival a stab. The 
wounded woman fell bleeding to the stage. For- 
tunately she was not fatally hurt, and her assailant 
escaped with an authoritative order to leave Russia, 
and stay away. 

Miss Bertha Welby, who is a popular and talented 
actress, was a member of the " Only a Farmer's 
Daughter" company, of which Miss Lilian Cleves 
was the star. The two ladies could not get along 



474 



THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 



together. Miss Welby insisted that Miss Cleves was 
jealous of her rival's success; and so it went on, 
until at last a low ruffian visited Miss Welby in her 
dressing-room one night, after the performance, and 
demanded money from her for having applauded her 
in several towns. She was afraid of the fellow, she 
said, and so paid him the sum he asked — $15. She 
then told him to go, and he went ; but Miss Cleves, it 




BLACKMAILING AN ACTRESS. 



appears, had assembled the members of the company 
at the door of the dressing-room to witness the pay- 
ment of the man, who, as she declared, had led the 
claque that was making Miss Welby a greater actress 
than the star. Miss Welby asserted that the whole 
thing was a piece of blackmail, and that Miss Cleves 
had instigated it. 

Operatic stars are violent sometimes in these exhi- 
bitions of jealousy. It will be remembered that at the 
last Cincinnati music festival, Gerster absolutely re- 



THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 475 

fused to sing if Miss Cary preceded her, and the Hun- 
garian prima donna was induced to appear only by the 
graceful withdrawal of the fair American songstress. 
Miss Kellosrs: and Mile. Kozc had a bitter war in St. 
Louis in 1879, on account of their dressing-rooms, the 
American prima donna insisting on having the best the 
Grand Opera House afforded. She got it at last, and 
was shocked when she heard a story to the effect that 
Wakefield, then one of the proprietors, had a peep-hole 
above the dressing-room which he not only made use of 
himself but invited his friends to use. 

The jealousy of Mrs. McKee Rankin (Kitty Blanch- 
ard) has more than once been made the subject of news- 
paper articles. She thought her robust husband went 
through" the love scene with the Widow (Miss Eva 
Randolph) in the play with too lavish a display of 
affection, and the green-eyed monster took possession 
of her. She stood in the wings every night and 
watched the scene, and the more she watched it the 
madder she got until at last she demanded from her 
husband that Miss Randolph be dismissed. This Mr. 
Rankin sternly refused to do. Then Mrs. Rankin re- 
fused to play, and a clever young lady was given the part 
of Billy Piper. The newspapers praised the new Billy 
so highly that Mrs. Rankin hurried back to resume the 
part, but remained cold toward and entirely estranged 
from her husband. After some time the wound was 
healed and the couple reunited. There were several 
split-ups of this kind, but Mr. and Mrs. Rankin are 
now living happily together, and it is to be hoped that 
the success of their new play, " 49," will keep them 
happy forever. 

Now and then the jealous actress's feelings are ex- 
pressed in a rather ridiculous manner. During the run 
of a spectacular play in one of the large cities one of 



476 



THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 



those old chaps who like to linger behind the scenes 
and tickle the fairies under the chin succeeded in making 
himslf the admirer of one of the ladies — one who 
played a prince or something of that kind. He 
brought her flowers every night, took her to supper 




JEALOUSY. 

after the play, and often paid for a ride under the 
starry night at a time when he should have been rest- 
ing his hoary head upon his pillow at home. He kept 
this up for a while ; then he suddenly turned his at- 
tention to another girl, who was doing a skipping-rope 



THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 477 

dance during an interval in the play. He began to 
bring her flowers and to feed her on midnight oysters, 
and to take her on moonlight rides. The pretty prince 
stood it as long as she could ; then she made up her 
mind to be revenged on the old deceiver. She waited 
one night until she saw him talking to the skipping- 
rope dancer, when she picked up a broom, and steal- 
ing to the opposite side of the scene, made a high hit 
at his plug hat, just as he was presenting the rival a 
bouquet, and knocked the piece of head-gear clear into 
the outfield. The ancient Lothario felt around anions: 
the few hairs on the top of his head to see whether 
a piece of skull had not been chipped off; the skipping- 
rope dancer laughed ; the pretty prince hauled off and 
was about to bat the bouquet to second base when the 
dancer danced, and what remained to do was to advise 
the " old gray " to go, which he did rapidly after re- 
gaining possession of his battered hat. He was ad- 
vised that if he returned any more the broom would 
be used upon himself instead of his hat ; and the scenes 
that he had haunted so long knew him no more after 
that night. 

A New York wife wondered for a long time where 
her husband went at night. At least she learned that he 
haunted a down-town theatre. She knew her husband 
was very fond of the drama, but was astonished when 
she found out that he was patronizing the play without 
taking her along, so she dressed up one evening and 
going up to the box-office, asked the young man whose 
smiling face shone through the window, if Mr. So-and- 
So was there? Now she had gone to the right source 
for her information. Mr. So-and-So had taken away 
the affections of one of the actresses from the man in 
the box-office ; therefore the man in the box-office 
manfully replied that Mr. So-and-So was back in Miss 



478 



THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 






Whatdyecaller's dressing-room. Would the man in 
the box-office be kind enough to show Mr. So-and-So's 
wife where the dressing-room was? He would, most 
gladly. Calling his assistant to the window the 
treasurer took the lady in through the stage entrance 




and pointed out the dressing-room. Sure enough 
there was Mr. So-and-So in very close relation and 
very close conversation with Miss Whatdyecaller, who 
being a ballet girl, in the act of getting herself into 



THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 479 

her gauze and spangles, had little else on than her 
tights. The husband was astounded ; the wife was 
boiling over with rage ; the dancer did not know what 
to make of it. The husband said that there was blood 
in his spouse's eye and fled the scene. Mrs. So-and- 
So then turned her attention to the lady in summer 
costume, and there was a war of words that ended in 
the actress snapping her fingers in the wife's face, 
while the latter, unable to do or say anything in her 
rage, strutted out after her faithless lord and master, 
who was afraid to return home for three days, and did 
not return until he saw a " personal " in the Herald 
saying that all would be forgiven and no questions 
asked. 

The meanest trick, I think, that was ever prompted 
by jealousy was one in which a well-known comedian 
and a handsome juvenile lady were made the victims. 
Having determined to go to a fancy dress ball, they 
borrowed a Mephistopheles and Venus costume, and 
having dressed at the theatre in which they were play- 
ing., took their clothes to their boarding-house, the 
comedian retaining only his ulster and the young lady 
only her silk fur-lined cloak. In the same house the 
leading lady roomed, and as the comedian had been 
somewhat attentive to her she grew jealous when she 
saw him escorting the other flame to the ball, and that 
both might be taught a lesson she resolved upon a plan 
of action which she faithfully carried out. The 
comedian and his companion had plenty of fun at the 
ball . They returned to their boarding-house about three 
a. m. Both had latch-keys, but they wouldn't work. 
Somebody had fastened down the bolt. What were 
they to do? It was a cold morning with snow on the 
ground and snow still falling. Their carriage had 
gone ; they didn't wish to go to a hotel in masquerade 



480 THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 




OUT IN THE COLD. 



style, so they resolved to stick it out until the door 
would be opened. And they did so. The comedian 



THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 481 

wrapped his ulster around him and sat down on the 
doorstep ; the young lady gathered her cloak around 
her as tightly as she could and stood up in a corner of 
the entrance, shivering and wondering what the people 
thought who passed by and looked at them. They re- 
mained there three hours, and when the door was 
opened, it was the leading lady who did the opening. 
She laughed as if she would lose her life in the effort 
when she saw the plight the two were in, and said as 
they passed up the hall that she was sorry she had put 
down that bolt when she came home, but she thought 
they were both in the house. 

The story of an actor's jealousy is nicely told by a 
New York paper in the following : A handsome young 
actress attached regularly to one of the New York 
theatres has a husband and a baby, a sickly little thing, 
and the husband is outrageously jealous, all the more 
that this season he has done "job work," which has 
kept him " on the road" pretty constantly. Lately 
he " came in," the " combination " with which he was 
connected having " gone up." He arrived unexpect- 
edly late one afternoon, and found his wife out. On 
the table lay a note addressed to her in a masculine 
hand. It was open and ran thus : — 

« ' Dear Friend : I do not think you have any cause 
to be anxious about the baby. It is only cutting its 
teeth a little hard — that's all. However, as you de- 
sire it, and say it would relieve your mind while you 
are away at the theatre, I will come to-night about 
nine and stay all night with you. Don't speak of the 
trouble. I shall only be too glad to let you get a little 
sleep after being up so much with baby. 

Your true friend, K. S. Stanton, M. D." 

The husband was furious at this note, seemingly so 



482 THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 

harmless. He thrust it into his pocket, and without 
waiting to see his wife strode from the house. He 
had now, he thought, what he had long suspected, 
proof of his wife's infidelity. Why, it was shamless ! 
Dr. Staunton would pass the night, would he, and 
blame it on the baby ! but he should find that there 
was a husband around ready to deal terrible vengeance 
upon the betrayer. His feelings were not pleasant 
ones, as he lay perdue the rest of the -day, nursing his 
wrath, to keep it warm. When the pretty young 
actress came home she was told that a gentleman had 
called and gone away in a great hurry, leaving no 
name. At about half-past ten that evening, while she 
was at the theatre, the door of her bed-room was 
dragged open furiously, and the enraged husband 
rushed in. He looked around under the bed and into 
the closets, but found no man. 

There were, however, two persons in the room. 
One an infant slumbering peacefully in the crib, the 
other a lady sitting at a small table on which lay sev- 
eral little bits of white paper into which she was 
pouring some globules from a tiny bottle. Her eyes 
were blue, her complexion a pure pink and white, and 
her hair, curling in loose ringlets over her well-formed 
head, was just touched with gray. She looked up as- 
tonished and said : — 

" Don't make such a noise ; you'll wake the child. 
Are you a burglar or what do you want? " 

The husband paused in his fruitless search and re- 
plied : " I want that man." 

" What man?" 

" The man that's made an appointment with my 
wife for to-night." 

" Who is your wife and what business have you in 
Miss 's bed-room?" asked the lady. 



THE GREEN-EYED AND OTHER MONSTERS. 483 

" Miss 's my wife." 

" Indeed ; well, you can't make me believe that she 
ever made any appointment with any man she oughtn't 
to make." 

" I can't, can't I? read that then," he said, throw- 
ing the letter on the table and scattering the medicine. 
The lady read the letter and began to laugh, which en- 
raged the husband still more. 

" Where have you hidden this Dr. Stanton? I will 
blow his brains out," he cried. 

" No, you won't." 

" You see if I don't." 

" Well, blow then : I am Dr. Stanton, the author of 
that letter," said the lady. 

She had to sign her name, Kate S. Stanton, and 
show him that the writing was the same as in the note, 
before he would be convinced, and then he was the 
most sheepish-looking man in New York The story 
got out, and he was the butt of every actor in the 
city. They refused to believe that he " walked 
home." They condoled with him on account of his 
ill health, which forced him to stop acting. They 
recommended him to consult a doctor, especially a 
lady doctor, Kate Stanton, for example. Altogether 
he was so " roasted " that he will have to have more 
than a mere letter in future to make him thirst for 
vengeance. 

" Hang these women doctors ! " is all you can get 
him to say; " if they must be doctors, why can't 
they sign their full name, and not make trouble be- 
tween man and wife?" 



CHAPTEK XXXV. 



JOHN WILKES BOOTH, PRESIDENT LINCOLN S ASSASSIN. 

An interview with an old stager was published a few 
months ago in the New York Dramatic News, which 
furnishes some new ideas about John Wilkes Booth, 
brother of the illustrious Edwin, and the terrible crime 
with which he shook a nation to its centre. John 
Wilkes Booth, it will be remembered, was the man 
who shot and killed President Lincoln, while the latter 
was witnessing a performance of " Our American 
Cousin," at Ford's Theatre, Washington, D. C, on the 
night of April 14, 1865. Laura Keene was on the 
stage at the time. Wilkes Booth entered the Presi- 
dent's box and shot him in the back of the head. He 
then made his escape by leaping from the box to the 
stas:e, and running thence through the sta^e entrance 
to the street, where he leaped on a horse in waiting for 
him. As he sprang from the box, his foot caught in 
the American flag which was draped around the railing, 
and he fell, spraining his ankle. Landing on the stage, 
he jumped up, and waving a dagger over his head, 
he shouted, " Sic semper tyrannis" He was subse- 
quently shot by Sergeant Corbett, while attempting to 
escape from a barn in which he had sought refuge. 

Said a veteran actor, referring back a score of 
years, to Wilkes Booth's opening at Wallack's old 
theatre, on Broadway, near Broome Street: ''The 
piece to open in was « Richard III.' Monday morn- 
ing came for rehearsal with the star, and the company 

(484) 



JOHN WILKES BOOTH. 



485 



had all assembled awaiting him. Many were the 
stories told of his wonderful gifts and eccentricities. 
One old member of the company, who had played 
with him through Georgia, prophesied he would make 




JOHN WILKES BOOTH. 



a terrific hit. Said he : * I am an old man at the 
business and have seen and played with some of the 
greatest tragedians the world has ever seen. I've 



486 JOHN WILKES BOOTH. 

played second to Macready. I've divided the applause 
with Charles Kean. I've acted often with Forrest, 
but in all my long years of professional experience this 
young man Wilkes Booth (I might call him a boy), 
this boy is the first actor that ever (to use a profes- 
sional term) knocked me off my pins, upset and com- 
pletely left me without a word to say ! Yes, sir, an 
old actor like me that you would suppose an earth- 
quake could not move, was tongue-tied — unable to 
speak his lines.' * Perhaps you never knew them,' 
said our saucy soubrette. The old man smiled, and 
then glaring at her said : * Not know Shakespeare ? ' He 
turned from her with a contemptuous smile. < Why, 
then,' said Jim Collier, « were you so much at sea if 
you were so well up in the lines ? ' * Wait till you see 
him yourself, then ask. I tell you, gentlemen, there 
is more magnetism in Wilkes Booth's eye than in any 
human being's I ever saw.' I listened to the old 
actor with pleasure, and set him down as an enthu- 
siast — a not uncommon thing among some veterans 
of the stage, although, as a rule they are apt to carp at 
the present and deplore the downfall of the past. 
' What do you think? ' said Ed. Tilton to me. ' You 
know the young man's brother, Edwin, and played 
with the father of the boys. So have I ; but don't 
you think our friend exaggerates a bit? ' ' No, I do 
not,' said I, * for I know the genius that runs in the 
blood of the Booth family, and have seen it crop up 
at times in just such a manner as he describes. The 
last engagement that the great Junius Brutus Booth 
played in San Francisco only a few weeks before his 
death, I was cast for Parson Welldo in a " New Way 
to Pay Old Debts." And when Sir Giles, hemmed in 
on all sides, is unable to break the combination against 
him, sees the parson approaching, the lion immedi- 



JOHN WILKES BOOTH. 487 

ately becomes a lamb. His look of heavenly sweet- 
ness when I told him of the marriage of his daughter 
was a study ; but when he learned she was wedded to 
his bitterest enemy, only a Dore's pencil could depict 
the diabolical malignity of the man. The marks of his 
fingers I carried upon my throat for days after, and 
when he shrieked in my ear with his hot breath, and 
the foam dropping from his lip — " tell me, devil, are 
they married? " I had but to reply " they are," but 
was unable to do so. So you see I am prepared for 
anything this wonderful young man may turn out 
to be.' 

"At that moment a commotion was heard at the 
back of* the stage, and Baker's voice was heard to say : 
1 Oh ! not waiting long ; you are on time ! ' And 
striding down the centre of the stage came the young 
man himself who was destined to play such an unfor- 
tunate part in the history of our country afterwards. 
The stage being dark at his entrance, the foot and 
border lights were suddenly turned up and revealed a 
face and form not easily described or forgotten. You 
have seen a high-mettled racer with his sleek skin and 
eye of unusual brilliancy chafing under a restless im- 
patience to be doing something. It is the only living 
thing I could liken him to. After the usual introduc- 
tions were over, with a sharp, jerky manner he com- 
menced the rehearsal. I watched him closely and per- 
ceived the encomiums passed upon him by the old actor 
were not in the least exaggerated. Reading entirely 
new to us, he gave ; business never thought of by the 
oldest stager, he introduced ; and, when the rehearsal 
was over, one and all admitted a great actor was 
amongst us. Knowing his own powers, he was very 
particular in telling those around him not to be af- 



488 JOHN WILKES BOOTH. 

frighted at night, as he might (he said, with a smile) 
throw a little more fire into the part than at rehearsal . 
Lady Anne (Miss Gray) was gently admonished ; 
Richmond, who was Jim Collier, was bluntly told to 
look out in the combat scene. Jim, who was ( and prob- 
ably is now) something of an athlete, smiled a sickly 
smile at the idea of anybody getting the best of him in 
a combat scene, and in a sotto voice said to Jim Ward, 
'Keep your eye on me to-night.' 

"The evening arrived, the house was fair only, and 
his reception was not as warm as his merits deserved. 
The soliloquy over, then came the scenes with King 
Henry, and breaking loose from all the old orthodox, 
tie-wig business of the Richards since the days of 
Garrick down to Joannes, he gave such a rendition of 
the crook-back tyrant as was never seen before, and 
perhaps never will be again. Whether it was in the 
gentle wooing of the Lady Anne, the hypocrisy, of the 
king, or the malignant joy at Buckingham's capture 
down to the fight and death of the tyrant, originality 
was stamped all over and through the performance. 
It was a terrible picture, but it had a numerous side 
one night. At the commencement of the combat, 
when Richard, covered with blood and the dust of the 
battle-field, crosses swords with Richmond, Collier 
looked defiant and almost seemed to say : * Now, Mr. 
Wilkes Booth, you have been frightening everybody 
to-night, try it on me?' And at the lines where 
Richard says, 'A dreadful lay; here's to decide it,' 
the shower of blows came furious from Richard's 
sword upon the devoted earl's head. Now was 
Collier's turn, and bravely did he return them; with 
renewed strength Richard rained blows upon blows 
so fast that the athletic Jim began to wince — as much 



JOHN WILKES BOOTH. 489 

as to say, ■ How long is this going to last? ' Nothing 
daunted, Collier with both hands clenched his power- 
ful weapon, but it was only a feather upon Booth's 
sword. Jim was the first to show evidence of exhaus- 
tion, and no wonder, nothing could withstand the 
trip-hammer blows of that Richard. Watching for 
his head's protection, he was too unmindful of his 
heels, and before he was aware of it, the doughty Jim 
for once was discomfited — beaten ; and lay upon his 
back in the orchestra, where the maddened Booth had 
driven him. 

" The fight over, the curtain descended, but Booth 
could not rise. Many believed him dead, but no ! 
there was the hard breathing and the glazed, open eye. 
Could it be possible this was the man who only a few 
moments before nobody could withstand in his fury ; 
now a limp mass of exhausted nature, his nerves all 
unstrung, and whom a child might conquer? 

" Well, the piece, as may be imagined, was a suc- 
cess — a positive and an unqualified success, so much 
so that it was kept on the balance of the week. " The 
Kobbers " was called for rehearsal next, and as usual the 
war (then in progress) was the sole topic of conver- 
sation. The company was pretty evenly divided on 
the question, a majority of them having played through- 
out the South, and had the same sympathy that the mer- 
chant had who saw his trade diverted through other 
channels. Not a word of politics was ever heard from 
Booth during the first week of his engagement, 
although he was an attentive listener to the angry dis- 
cussions pro and con., till one morning somebody (I 
forget who) read aloud from a newspaper of the ar- 
rest of Marshal George P. Kane in Baltimore, and his 
incarceration in Fort McHenry 'by order of Stanton. 



490 JOHN WILKES BOOTH. 

One of the company (now dead) who shall be name- 
less, approved heartily of the act, and denounced the 
entire city of Baltimore as [a, hot-bed of rebels, and 
should be razed to the ground. His opponent took 
an entirely different view of the question, and thought 
the levelling to the earth should be done to one Edwin 
Stanton b} 7- the aid of a pistol shot. The unfortunate 
Lincoln's name was never mentioned. At the sug- 
gestion of shooting Stanton, a voice, tremulous with 
emotion, at the back of the stage was heard to ex- 
claim. 'Yes, sir, you are right!' It was Booth's. 
6 1 know George P. Kane well ; he is my friend, and the 
man who could drag him from the bosom of his family 
for no crime whatever, but a mere suspicion that he 
may commit one some time, deserves a dog's death ! ' 

" It was not the matter of what he said, it was the 
manner and general appearance of the speaker, that 
awed us. It would remind you of Lucifer's defiance 
at the council. He stood there the embodiment of 
evil. But it was for a moment only, for in the next 
breath with his sharp, ringing voice, he exclaimed, 
* Go on with the rehearsal ! ' 

" That day and its events passed from memories of 
the majority of us, but I never could forget the scene ; 
the statuesque figure of the young man uttering those 
few words in the centre of the old stage of Wallack's 
can never be forgotten. Some months after I was 
awakened from a sound sleep and told that President 
Lincoln had been shot. Half dazed I inquired when, 
and where, and being told, asked who was the assas- 
sin? Wilkes Booth is thought to be, but it is only a 
supposition that he is the guilty one. I felt it was but 
too true, for I could see him in my mind's eye as upon 
that day in the old theatre when he would have under- 



JOHN WILKES BOOTH. 491 

taken any task, however bold. A few hours after 
proved the rumor to be true. The last act of the 
tragedy all are familiar with, and one day standing at 
the grave outside of Baltimore where all that is mor- 
tal of father and son lie, I could not stifle memories of 
the past, and felt like dropping a tear of pity over the 
sudden and early downfall of one so promising, that 
had he lived might now be delighting nightly thousands 
with his powerful acting." 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 



THE SUMMER VACATION 



The close of a theatrical season, which rarely exceeds 
forty weeks, and which terminates in the month of June, 
is always hailed by the prosperous actor as an occasion 
when he can find enjoyment and rest in some cosy 
spot ; or if he is in the ranks, and is ambitious to be 
reckoned in the constellation of dramatic stars, he 
looks forward to his summer vacation as a time in 
which he will have opportunity to fix up his business 
for the coming season ; or if he has not yet secured 
a manager — probably needing one with money — he 
can button-hole the financiers of the "Square," as 
the meeting-place and mart of the theatrical fraternity 
of the entire continent is termed. The stars are 
becoming so numerous, and, indeed, so insignificant, 
that even members of the variety profession with the 
thinnest pretensions in the world to dramatic distinc- 
tion, and there are few on the legitimate stage above 
the ranks of utility, who have not aspirations of the 
same bright and twinkling kind. The beginning of 
every season finds a hundred or more new combina- 
tions, with little talent and less money, starting out 
on the road ; and one, two, or three weeks brings 
them back, either " on their baggage," or " on their 
uppers," — that is, the railroad company carries them 
home and holds the baggage for their fares, or they 
" count the railroad ties," which is a metaphoric way 
of saying they walk home. Very few of the cheap 

(492) 



THE SUMMER VACATION. 



493 



variety artists of the present day are worthy of even 
a mean place in the " legit.," as they designate the 
legitimate stage ; and it may be said, too, that some 
stars who have succeeded in reaching the legitimate; 
boards would scarcely be reckoned bright ornaments 
among the gems of the variety stage. This, however, 
is a subject beyond the purposes of this work, and so 
I will not 2:0 further into it. 




AT THE SEASIDE, 



The actor and actress who have settled down to the 
regular routine of general work are among the persons 
who get most enjoyment for their money during their 
summer vacation. Stars, male and female alike, who 
have made money and reached a satisfactory round on 
the ladder of fame, though they may not have cottages 
by the seaside, or summer residences of anything 
like a pretentious character, can also be counted 
amon? the number who " loaf and invite their 
souls" in a profitable and pleasurable manner. Most 



494 THE SUMMER VACATION. 

of the male stars have nice little nooks by river, lake, 
or seaside, in quiet, cool, and shady spots, while the 
tragediennes and comediennes of prominence and for- 
tune seem to prefer either handsome residences in New 
York or other Eastern metropolis, or else a watering- 
place cottage. Maggie Mitchell prefers Long Branch. 
So does Mary Anderson, who lives a very Secluded life 
at this gay resort. Most of her time is passed in play- 
ing with her little step-sister on the lawn of their 
pretty place. She rides on horseback a great deal, and 
takes an occasional short cruise on her new yacht, 
" The Galatea," which she has named after the latest 
role added to her repertoire. Minnie Palmer, about 
the only real rival Lotta has got, summers at Long 
Branch. Emma Abbott goes to Cape Ann. Lester 
Wallack devotes himself and his vacation to making 
short trips in his steam yacht. John McCullough 
hasn't settled down anywhere yet. Last year he went 
to England to work and win a London reputation ; 
this year he is with Gen. Sheridan in the Yellowstone 
Valley. Fred. Marsden likes to go fishing at Salmon 
Lake. McKee Rankin has a stock farm at Bois Blanc, 
Canada, where he spends his summers. John W. 
Norton flies away to Coney Island, Long Branch, and 
a round of the Eastern watering-places, Mrs. Norton 
always accompanying him. And so the category 
might be lengthened out. But it is useless. Estab- 

O IT? 

lished stars have established fortunes as well as repu- 
tations only by dint of the hardest, and, I might add, 
in many cases, least appreciated kind of work, and 
they deserve the thousands of dollars they make every 
year. Few of the great stars fall less than $50,000 
for a forty weeks' season, and there are few whose 
share goes under $1,000 a week. Joe Emmet accumu- 
lates money faster, probably, than any other man who 



THE SUMMER VACATION. 495 

plays to the same prices, and John McCullough and 
Mary Anderson are among the reapers of the richest 
harvests. Booth seldom plays a season through, but 
when he does he, of course, carries off the honors. 

Actors and actresses, while generous as a class, save 
their money, and very few are found loitering around New 
York " broke," during the vacation months. Still there 
are cases of poverty. I have known a former popular 
Irish comedian, who belongs to a family of popular 
and prosperous members of the profession, to walk 
the streets of a Western town many a day without a 
cent in his pockets and nothing to look up to at night 
for shelter but the stars high and pitiless over his bald 
head. Everybody has read about the English actor, 
who, driven to distress, and standing at the door of 
starvation, donned an old gray wig, and was found 
singing and begging around Union Square. It was 
only when a policeman in arresting him accidentally 
pulled off his wig that the actor's identity and condi- 
tion were known. The former was carefully concealed 
and the latter cheerfully and liberally relieved. I was 
at a banquet given by the press of St. Louis to Thomas 
W. Keene, the tragedian, during his first starring sea- 
son, when among the few guests who sat down to the 
table, between Billy Crane and Stuart Robson, was a 
short, stout, gray-headed, and long gray-bearded man, 
whom nobody knew. The night was bitterly cold, 
still the old fellow wore only a long, gray linen duster 
oyer a thin, red woollen shirt, with a very queer pair of 
pantaloons and rough brogans. His high, battered 
and wide-brimmed hat rested under his chair as if he 
was afraid some of the company would steal it. He 
swept clean every dish set before him, emptied every 
glass of wine, and with bent head, and knife and fork 
in hand, was waiting anxiouslv for each course when it 



496 



THE SUMMER VACATION. 



came. "As soon as he was noticed the question passed 
around, " Who is the old gray? " and fun was poked 
at him ruthlessly ; but it rebounded lightly from the 
folds of his linen duster, and he heeded not the blows. 
When the toasts went around the old man was asked 




JOHN W. NORTON, 



to respond to one, and got up and spoke charmingly 
for half an hour or more, introducing the Marseillaise, 
both as a martial hymn, and as a song and dance. 
Then he explained how the city editor of a local paper 
had sent him to report the banquet ; how he came shiv- 
ering to the marrow of his bones to the door of the 





MARY ANDERSON 



THE SUMMER VACATION. 497 

Club House — the most fashionable in the eity — and 
asked permission to go into the kitchen to warm him- 
self previous to appearing at the banquet board, a per- 
mission which was granted. The old man spoke so 
eloquently in telling a pitiful story of his poverty, Pat 
Short, treasurer of the Olympic, at the instigation, I 
think, of Manager Norton of the Grand Opera House, 
picked up a hat and took up a collection from the 
ten newspaper men and ten actors present. The col- 
lection netted $39.75, which was poured in the old 
man's two hands, while his eyes were wet with tears. 
Then he was freely plied with wine, and danced, sang, 
and gave phrenological examinations for two hours, 
when the crowd dispersed in the greatest good humor. 
Stuart Robson told this story to a Boston Times man 
who made a two-column article out of it that travelled 
all over the country, and in which all the credit of the 
charity with the figures greatly increased was appro- 
priated unjustly, by Messrs. Robson & Crane. But 
this is not what I started out about. 

" While the actor seeks deep shadows under the far- 
reaching arms of huge trees," writes the New York 
Dramatic Times man, "or leisurely smokes his pipe 
beneath heavy boughs, thick with scented buds and blos- 
soms, some one is working out his programme for the 
next season. This * st)me one ' is often confounded 
with the actor himself, or is taken for the parasite who 
fosters and thrives on some indirect vein of the living 
and active theatrical body. The sturdy man of busi- 
ness, who by chance happens to pass the pavement 
between Broadway and Fifth Avenue, on the south 
side of Union Square, fancies that the crowd of well- 
dressed and, as a rule, quiet men, are idle profes- 
sionals, lounging away a warm day between gossip 
and beer. He little knows that this is the theatrical 



498 THE SUMMER VACATION. 

exchange of the Western World, where business is 
carried on in the same honorable mode as at the 
Stock Exchange, without the Bedlam noises, and that 
the seeming drifters under the grateful shade of the 
Morton House are as shrewd in looking at the run of 
the theatrical market as any Wall Street broker. 
Every theatre or nomadic attraction throughout the 
United States has, at some time during the day, a 
' some one ' looking out for ' dates ' and ' book- 
ing ' memoranda for future contracts. Without any 
agreement to meet or transact business, the ' some 
one ' appears with the June roses and makes it a point 
to pass the Rialto between the hours of ten a. m. and 
four p. m. The affairs of this exchange are gigantic 
(when for instance one manager gives bona fide evi- 
dence that he has cleared $40,000 in the past season), 
and though it would be impossible to make an estimate 
of the total amount, it is safe to say that millions are 
the result of these seemingly casual meetings. 

" A guide published last year gives a total of about 
four thousand five hundred theatres, that kept open 
their doors for an average of forty weeks. Taking 
the poor attraction, with the star that fills the theatre 
to overflowing, the average receipts would be about 
$150 for each theatre, or $675,000 paid every night 
for amusements throughout the United States. This 
would make a total for one week, of $4,050,000, or, 
for the entire season of*fbrty weeks, $162,000,000, not 
counting matinees. Taking, then, an industry that 
brings in over $160,000,000 in round numbers during the 
season, the neatly dressed men that are said to ' hang 
around the Square ' are the men that control or pull 
the wires and set the machinery in motion. The fig- 
ures above are, after all, but approximate, and neither 
include matinees, which in themselves would count one 



THE SUMMER VACATION. 499 

million, nor does it include the circus world, which is 
not represented on the Rialto. 

" On the other side of the. ledger will be found 
twenty-eight thousand actors drawing their salaries 
from these receipts ; and about twelve thousand more, 
consisting of carpenters, property-men, scene-shifters, 
the employees of the front of the theatre, etc. Twenty 
dollars a week each would make a fair average for the 
entire forty thousand, and would aggregate a total of 
$32,000,000 in salaries alone. Add to this the rent 
of the four thousand live hundred different theatres 
and halls which, at a moderate calculation of say 
$4,000 each, would make $18,000,000 for the year. 

"The season having closed, actors seek secluded 
spots, revel in the enjoyment of flannel shirts and 
country life, enjoying a dolce far niente either by sea- 
shore or in wooded glens, and are described as 'rest- 
ing.' In the nooks many have charming households, 
and under their roof-trees happiness reigns, without 
much reference to ■ shop.' The manager or agent, 
however, as soon as one season ends, procures his 
' booking ' book and starts for the Square. His plan 
may be to play his attraction in the South. The end 
of his route will then likely be New Orleans. After 
having his date in that city, he will * fill up ' his time 
going and coming back. If the attraction be good, he 
fills his time by playing in larger cities for one week ; 
if not, he makes one or two-night stands, which, in- 
terpreted, means that his company plays for one or two 
nights in a city. Starting in September, he works his 
way down by Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington x 
and then in the beaten route through Richmond, Mem^ 
phis, Atlanta, etc. This route fixing shows the ex- 
perienced manager ; for should he, for instance, have 
i he week commencing February 1st in New Orleans a 



500 THE SUMMER VACATION. 

he would have a night in Mobile, Alabama, before 

reaching there. To a new man the Mobile manager 

© © 

might offer Saturday, giving the company time to 
reach New Orleans on Monday. If this be accepted, 
it would show inexperience in the route maker, as the 
fashionable night at Mobile is Friday, Saturday being 
* niggers' ' night. He should so time it as to reach 
Mobile on Friday, play that night to big business, have 
his matinee, and do the best he could with Saturday 
night. In other sections of the country he must know 
when the workman's pay-day is. In the oil and mining 
regions, for instance, the men are paid but every fort- 
night. The attraction which reaches there soonest 
after the pay-day fares the best. 

" Another of the grave considerations is the question 
of railroad fares. All but the big attractions must 
take into serious consideration the general increase of 
railroad rates to the profession. Some of the roads 
have not joined in the pool, and still cater to theatrical 
custom. The cities on these routes are likely to have 
a rush of attractions this season, and, as a consequence, 
will before long yield poor receipts. At any rate there 
is a tendency, even among the best-paying companies, 
to take short 'jumps ' this season (1882-3) and visit 
cities that would have been passed over with contempt 
a short time since. But the difference of travelling 
expenses one or three hundred dollars in a day, with a 
company of forty people, dragging extra baggage, 
means a big difference in profits. 

" The man on the Square has to look out for all 
these things, as well as the printing of the company, 
one of the most important and expensive items of 
a travelling company, an item which will often make 
him pass wakeful days and sleepless nights. These 
contracts, of course, vary for the different organiza- 



T11K SUMMER VACATION. 501 

tions. The big theatrical gun as well as the smallest, 
either personally or through agents, keeps himself 
posted of the affairs of the Rialto. No matter as to 
how heavy calibre the big gun may be, he may tell his 
friend he don't visit the Square, but he does, or is 
sure to let it be known that he lives at the Union 
Square Hotel, or at some other hotel near by, where 
his booking is done. Managers of provincial theatres, 
eager to fill the time for their houses, travel eastward 
to the Mecca of theatredom, or have their booking 
done by local agents or firms engaged in this city in 
that specialty — the commission for an attraction 
being from $5 to $7. One firm of this kind in Union 
Square do the booking for more than fifty theatres, 
while another and larger one in Twenty-third Street 
controls entire circuits, and furnishes attractions for 
several hundred theatres. The manager having laid the 
foundation of his plan, takes the summer to complete 
it, changing a town here, or a date there, to make his 
route as complete as possible, and as convenient to 
travel over, so as to reach a town and have his com- 
pany rest before appearing. 



CHAPTER XXXVII, 



.FUN AMONG THE ELKS* 



The benevolent and protective order of Elks is a 
mystic organization whose membership is made up al- 
most entirely of theatrical people, newspaper men, 
and people who have some claim or other on the dra- 
matic profession. It is a noble institution, having for 
its foundation those grand and beautiful principles — 
friendship, charity, and justice. Every prominent 
actor in the country is found on its rolls, and the good 
work it accomplishes from one year to another is 
extensive, and worthy the widest recognition. The 
only thing I have to find fault with is its initiation bus- 
iness. Being a jolly, fun-loving set, every candidate 
is put through in the liveliest kind of style. I had a 
friend, a low comedian nanied Jughandle, who got me 
to be an Elk, and I think they put up an unusually inter- 
esting bill for my initiation. In fact, I don't think it 
was a genuine Elk initiation at all, but it was awful 
funny for those who witnessed, and not a bit pleasant 
for me. 

It was Sunday afternoon when I was introduced to 
the mysteries of this Order. The first person I met in 
the ante-chamber of the lodge room was an officer 
called the Outer Spyglass. He ordered two strange 
Elks to lead me away to another room where I was 
blindfolded, and a long gown was thrown over me. A 
large red box, coffin-shaped, with hinges in the middle 
of the back, and a round hole in the middle of the split 

(502) 



FUN AMONG THE ELKS. 503 

lid, so that by opening the box, adjusting a man's 
neck to the place intended for it, and then closing the 
box again, the contrivance became the ghastliest sort 
of a pillory. There were arm openings in the sides of 
the coffin and the lower portion which had been sawed 
short was not boarded up, so that the legs might be as 
free as possible under the circumstances, in walking. 
Into a wooden overcoat of this kind I was hurriedly 
thrust, with my head protruding through the hole in 
the lid. The garment had been built for a man with a 
longer and thinner neck than mine,. and its proportions 
were so entirely out of keeping with my physique, 
that while I was choking, and my spinal column 
threatened to crack any minute, my arms and legs 
were suffering the severest torture. It was certainly 
a comfort to know that dead people do not as a gen- 
eral thing wear their ligneous ulsters in this style. 
When I had the overcoat on, the attendants tied a 
piece of rope around my neck, a three-pound prayer- 
book was placed in my right hand, and a euchre deck 
of cards in my left. Being ready for the sacrifice, one 
of the Elks was delegated to introduce me to the 
Order. He took hold of the rope that hung from my 
neck and hauled me up to the door at which the Grand 
Microscope stands guard. 

"The candidate is ready," said the outer Spy- 
Glass. 

" Let him enter ! " was the Microscope's command. 

Trembling and helpless, I stood at last, a picture of 
the utmost ridiculousness and misery, in the presence 
of the High, Mighty and Magnificent Muck-a-Muck of 
the Order. 

"Quivering candidate!" the Muck-a-Muck ex- 
claimed. "The Elks give you greeting. Every person 
here assembled stretches out his right hand to you, and 



504 



FUN AMOXG THE ELKS. 



the champion Indian-Club Swinger will now give you, 
in one solid chunk, the congratulations of this entire 
gathering for the success that promises to attend your 




A CANDIDATE IN REGALIA. 



attempt to enter our Order. Club-Swinger, congratu- 
late!" 

The Club-Swinger did so. It was the most startling 
congratulation I was ever the recipient of. If a train of 



FUN AMONG THE KLKS. 505 

cars travelling at the rate of 100 miles an hour had run 
into me I could not have been more surprised. A blow 
that would have made a pile driver or a quartz hammer 
feel that it had no more force than the hind leg of a 
house-fly was planted on the coffin lid right over the 
first button of my vest, and for three minutes I sped 
through space. When I landed on my back I felt as if 
I had run against another such blow speeding in an 
opposite direction to the first. Every bone in my body 
was jarred to my finger tips and toe-nails, and the 
wrench my neck got in the sudden stoppage gave me 
the impression that my spine had been all at once 
lengthened out sixteen feet and was still growing. 

"Potential Pill-Prescriber ! " the High Muck-a- 
Muck commanded, " examine the candidate's condition 
and immediately report upon the same ! How has he 
stood the congratulation ? ' ' 

The Master Physician felt my pulse, muttered to him- 
self " 14,— 48,— 96,— 135," and answered "He has 
stood it well, your Majesty." 

" Then let him thrice make the circuit of the Peculiar 
Circle ! " was the next command. 

Several Elks helped me to my feet, and after gather- 
ing up the scattered euchre deck and restoring it and 
the prayer-book to my outstretched hands, the first 
attendant seized the rope still dangling from my neck, 
and led me on a rapid trot around the lodge room. 
Wherever 1 passed heavy blows were rained upon my 
coffin covering, and I imagined I heard several half- 
suppressed laughs among my tormentors . I was begin- 
ning to get mad and had about made up my mind to 
throw off the wooden yoke I was carrying around, tear 
the bandage from my eyes, and sail in and punch the 
heads of half-a-dozen Elks, when I was pounced upon, 
dragged to the floor and roughly relieved of the coffin. 



506 FUN AMONG THH ELKS. 

I felt better after this and calmly awaited the next 
move. 

" Bring the candidate before the throne," was the 
next command of the High Muck-a-Muck. 

With the assistance of a few Elks I succeeded in 
reaching a spot where we stopped, and which, I suppose, 
was right in the midst of the radiance that hovers near- 
est the presiding officer's throne. It is needless to say 
that I felt very badly, and I must have looked frightful, 
especially when, as happened just then, somebody 
clapped a demolished stove-pipe hat on my head to add 
to my already ridiculous aspect. I had hopes, how- 
ever, that the end was near ; but I was sadly mistaken. 

" Now, trembling neophyte," said the High Muck-a- 
Muck, in very impressive tones, " the most important 
part of our ceremony still remains. Hitherto you have 
had all the fun ; from this time on the fun will be on the 
side of the assembled Elks. Let the Grand Microscope 
search the candidate. See that he has no life-preserver 
under his vest, or pre-Raphselite panel of sole leather 
concealed in that portion of his pantaloons to which 
the hind straps of his suspenders are fastened." 

" He is entirely defenceless, your Majesty," reported 
the Grand Microscope, after having made the necessary 
examination. 

" Then let him learn the three motions through which 
every Prophet passes before attaining to the grand 
secrets of our Order. Let him test the swiftness of 
the Descent, the roughness of the Path of Progress, and 
the suddenness of the Upward flight to glory, and the 
possession of the everlasting talisman. When this has 
been done, if the candidate still lives, prepare, my 
mystic brethren, to welcome him into your circle." 

My attendants now dealt with me very kindly. I 
hardly knew what to think of the easy, almost respect- 



FUN AMONG THE ELKS. 507 

fill, manner in which they took me by the arm as we 
walked along. Not a word was said. Silence intense 
as that which wields a spell over an audience while some 
daring act is in progress on the flying trapeze, seemed 
to surround me. As we walked I felt that there was 
the slightest bit of a rise — a gradual going upward — 
to my path. I paid little attention to this, however, 
because I was receiving unusually kind treatment at the 
time. I had just made up my mind that I had passed 
all the perilous places along the road, and was about to 
mutter to myself a mixture of thanks and self-gratula- 
tions for the security and comparative blissfulness of 
my condition, when, with surprising suddenness, my 
attendants caught me by the arms and legs, gave me a 
gentle waft forward, and then, reversing the motion, 
clapped me upon a rough plank at a very steep incline, 
down which I shot like lightning, regardless of the 
splinters that ran up into the tenderest portions of my 
pantaloons, and occasionally went on short and sharp 
expeditions into the neighborhood of my backbone. 
Down ! Down ! ! Down ! ! ! I slid, until I thought I had 
started from the top end of Jacob's ladder, away up 
beyond the furtherest space through which the tiniest 
stars twinkle, and was on a rapid and important journey 
to the centre of the earth. I kept on thinking this way 
until, for a moment, there was a cessation of the splinter 
annoyance upon that portion of my anatomy on which 
I usually do my sleighing. I felt myself falling, and 
then I felt myself stop. The force of gravitation- was 
never before so fully and satisfactorily impressed upon 
me. I got so heavy when I had no further to go that 
I nearly crushed my life out with my own weight, and 
the sitting down was done with such alacrity that a 
pile-driver couldn't have sent the splinters that clung 
to my pantaloons further into my flesh. Add to this that 



508 



FUN AMONG THE ELKS. 



the first thing I struck was not a spring mattress, or a 
high hair cushion, but a wheel-barrow, filled with small 
wooden cones, with sharp edges and cruel points. The 
shock caused me to send up such a howl that I imagined 
1 could see the hair of every Elk in the land standing on 
end. A well-defined laugh answered the howl, and 
before I could think of the front end of tfre prayers for 
the dead, I heard the High Muck-a-Muck's voice ring 
out : — 

" Wing him away," he commanded, " on Eincycle, 
the one-wheeled horse of the Hereafter." 

They wung me away at once. I discovered that the 
one-wheeled horse designated by the High Muck-a- 
Muck when he made use of the half 
German and half Latin word in his 
command was a very modern wheel- 
barrow. The road over which the 
winging was done was, to say the 
least, an unpleasant one. There 
was an obstruction of some kind 
every six inches — hills and hollows 
without number — and, even if I had 
not already been physically shattered 
by the exciting episodes of the first 
part of the initiation, the merciless 
jolting I got and the sharp-pointed 
cones I kept dancing up and down 
on were sufficient torture to make 

MUCK-A-MUCK. me 1(mg for g()me ^^ peaceful gpot 

on which I might stretch out my wearied limbs and close 
my eyes forever. I don't know how far I was carried over 
this rough road, whi # ch terminated in a tank of chilly 
water, into which I was unceremoniously dumped, 
while a shout went up from the assembled brotherhood 
that indicated that they were highly delighted over my 




FUN AMONG THE ELKS. 509 

prospects of being drowned. After sinking three 
times without any apparent effort having been made to 
rescue me, I evinced a disposition to remain under 
water. I was beginning to fill up rapidly, and celes- 
tial visions were already flitting before me, when 
something sharp ran through my shoulder and I felt 
myself lifted to the water's surface. 

" See that he remains blindfolded," shouted the 
High Muck-a-Muck, and, while I still dangled from an 
iron hook on the end of a stout pole, the dripping 
handkerchief was tightened across my eyes. 

"Put him through the Purgation rite," was the 
next order, in accordance with which I was thrown, 
face forward, upon a barrel, and one Elk taking me by 
the heels while another held my Jiead, I was rolled 
and rolled until I had passed through one of the most 
violent spells of sea-sickness anybody ever experi- 
enced. 

"Will the candidate recover?" asked the High 
Muck-a-Muck. 

" I have some hopes, your Majesty," answered the 
Potential Pill-Prescriber. 

" Then bring in the Krupp gun," the Muck-a-Muck 
commanded, " and while he still has life, let the can- 
didate climb the cloud-heights around which many a 
Prophet has soared." 

I was trembling with cold up to the time the High 
Muck-a-Muck mentioned the Krupp gun ; just then a 
chill of fear ran down my back and my knees knocked 
together so violently that I could hear the bones rattle. 
The great cannon was rolled in and placed in position 
near where I stood. 

" Spread the merciful net three hundred yards 
away," ordered the High Muck-a-Muck, " and sprinkle 
the carpet in its centre with fourteen papers of tacks. 



510 FUN AMONG THE ELKS. ' 

Place the sheet-iron bumper ten yards beyond, to pre- 
vent the candidate from being shot out of bounds. 
Charge the cannon with thirty pounds of powder ; load 
her up and let her fly ! " 

They poured the thirty pounds of powder into the 
huge mouth of the cannon, rammed down an iron or 
steel plate, and then to my horror, grabbed me and 
pushed me into the piece of ordnance until my feet 
rested on the metallic plate and my head barely pro- 
truded from the top of the war-engine. Buckets of 
chopped ice were poured in to fill up the vacant space, 
and before the congealed wadding was all in, mv toes 
and fingers were completely frost-bitten. When every- 
thing seemed to be in readiness the High Muck-a-Muck 
said : — 

" The candidate has no hat on. Fish his plug out 
of the lake, put an air-cushion inside and then deco- 
rate his head with it." 

The "air-cushion" referred to was only a blown 
bladder. It was placed in the top of my bruised and 
battered wet hat, which was tightly and gracefully 
placed upon my head. 

"Is he ready?" shouted the High Muck-a-Muck. 

" He is," was the Grand Microscope's answer. 

" Then, let her go ! " 

Fiz ! boom ! ! bang ! ! ! I knew the match was at 
the fuse ; felt the whole business give way ; heard the 
scream of the powder leaving the cannon at the same 
moment as myself; saw the flash of fire as it burned 
my eyebrows, moustache and the ends of my hair ; had 
my breath swept away by the swiftness of my flight, 
and while all these experiences were mingled in one 
instantaneous jumble in my mind, whack went my 
head against the sheet-iron bumper ; bang ! went the 
explosive bladder in my hat, and, hurled back by the 



FUN AMONG THE ELKS. 511 

recoil, I fell right in the middle of the carpet space in 
the merciful net, just back in the midst of the fourteen 
papers of tacks that had been sprinkled there for my 
benefit. I howled and jumped into the air, but every 
time I jumped I fell back again and got a fresh invoice 
of tacks in my flesh. Although there seemed to be 
nothing particularly mirth-provoking in my situation, 
the assembled Elks laughed heartily until I was stuck 
as full of carpet tacks as a boiled ham is of cloves at a 
pastry-cook's ball. Then they took me out of the 
net, picked the tacks out of my back, and stood me 
up, weak and exhausted, according to instructions, in 
front of the throne. 

"The candidate," said the High Muck-a-Muck, 
"has given satisfactory evidence of his fortitude and 
endurance, and we are now prepared to receive him 
forever into our number as an Elk. Let him take 
the oath and kiss the branching antlers." 

The oath was administered and I saluted the antlers 
with my lips as fervently as I could under the circum- 
stances. 

" Now remove the blindfold." 

The handkerchief was removed from my eyes and I 
saw — nothing. But I was an Elk. 

I have seen many candidates initiated into this Order 
since that time, but I have never seen any such pro- 
ceeding as that here described, which leads me to in- 
fer that some friends, and among them Jughandle, put 
up a job on me and used me a little roughly, for the 
sake of the sport it afforded them. 




(512) 



THE CIRCUS WORLD. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 



THE CIRCUS IS HERE. 



A "disengaged canvasman " who was probably 
driven to poetry for lack of other work wrote the fol- 
lowing spring verses which were published in the New 
York Clipper : — 

In the spring the gorgeous banners float upon the circus tent, 

And the active agents' fancies on " advances " all are bent. 

In the spring the ''bounding brothers " try some new and daring 

games, 
While the opposition " fakirs " call each other awful names. 

In the spring the "sideshow-blowers," with their never-failing 

tongues, 
Pump out paralyzing language from their copper-fastened lungs. * 
In the spring the fair Circassian, with her every hair on end, 
Leaves again her native Brooklyn, on the road her steps to wend. 

In the spring ye "candy-butcher" shows confections old and 

tough, 
While the gentle lemonadist juggles with the same old stuff. 
In the spring ye merry jester learns conundrums bright and new 
(Dug up by the Christy Minstrels in the year of '52). 

In the spring — and in the ring — the riders whirl around in style, 
While the air is filled with romance (and rheumatics — I should 

smile) ! 
In the spring — oh, well, I'll cheese it, for I haven't got a cent, 
And I think I hear the landlord, coming up to ask for rent ! 

There is more fact than poetry in these lines. The 

spring brings gaily colored posters, like flowers of 

many hues, to decorate the dead walls and fences ; and 

litters the streets with small hand-bills in which the 

33 (513) 



514 THE CIKCUS IS HERE. 

wonders of the evening show are dwelt upon in a style 
of rhetoric that would make George Francis Train 
sick. The name of the show is too long to print in 
this book, even if I began at the title-page and wrote 
small and close through every page down to the lower 
right-hand corner of the back cover. Since they got 
to consolidating shows, they have by some elastic 
process begun to lengthen out the name, and at every 
reappearance of a circus in a town the bill-poster must 
add a few yards to the length of his fence to get the 
improved and newly elongated name on it, and to make 
a few square yards of additional space for the fresh 
stock of impossible pictures the artist has chopped 
out for the show. I like to regard the ridiculous art 
and the brazen exaggeration of these posters. What 
consummate impertinence prompts the managers of 
these concerns to put a circus on paper that could 
never have an existence under the sun is something 
that it is impossible to understand. They ask and they 
must have the patronage of the public they insult by 
spreading such absurdities upon the wall as the picture 
of one horse lying on his back with his legs up and 
another horse standing above him, their eight hoofs 
meeting ; or of a man being blown from the mouth of 
a cannon, or indeed any of the other ridiculous and 
gaudy illustrations which are designed to catch the eye 
at a distance of one hundred yards and to hold the at- 
tention long enough to make the investigator of bill- 
board literature part with a half dollar. But it seems 
that circus managers and circus agents have no other 
idea of advertising than to make the ink and the colors 
on their posters say as much as the imagination can sug- 
gest, and to make people pay for the privilege of find- 
ing out that thev have been bamboozled. It seems to 
be remunerative though, for a circus can create greater 



THE CIRCUS IS HERE. 515 

commotion in a town than a big fire, and from the mo- 
ment it pitches its tents — a city of canvas, they usually 
call it — until the glory of the visit fades, thousands 
are interested in it and the opening of its doors always 
finds a throng with tickets in hand anxious to get in- 
side as early as possible, to have a thorough look at 
the menagerie and in the other way, by putting in full 
time to get their money's worth out of the show. 

The circus always comes to town with a nourish. 
There is a grand street parade. The dozen elephants 
and sixteen camels follow the band wagon, and then 
comes the cavalcade, gentlemen in court costumes and 
ladies in rich trailing robes with jaunty hat of gay 
ribbons and feathers flying in the breeze. The lion 
tamer is in the cage with the feeble animals that he 
keeps stirring up with his whip ; the clown in his lit- 
tle chariot with his trick mule, affords amusement to 
the children along the line ; then the snake charmer 
rolls by fondling the slimy reptiles, and after that 
comes a procession of red wagons with trampish 
drivers in red coats, and perhaps there are some gro- 
tesque figures on top of the wagons. At the rear some 
enterprising clothier has an advertising vehicle. That 
is about all there is to it, if we add the Undine wagon 
that has a place sometimes at the head and sometimes 
in the middle of this "gorgeous street pageant." 
Still it goes from one end of town to the other, scaring 
horses and creating the greatest excitement among the 
circus-going public. The $10,000 beauty "gag" 
that worked so successfully last season when Adam 
Forepaugh claimed to have paid that amount to Miss 
Louise Montague, a variety actress, for merely appear- 
ing in the street parade, riding on a howdah high 
upon the back of his largest elephant and for partici- 
pating in the grand entree at the opening of each 



516 THE CIRCUS IS HERE. 

performance. Barnum tried to make some free adver- 
tising for himself this season by announcing that he 
would pay $10,000 to the handsomest man and 
$20,000 to the handsomest lady, but he was shrewd 
enough to see that the scheme would not bring him 
back $30,000, so he allowed it to fall through. 

This subject of costly beauties recalls an incident 
that took place in a Western theatre. At the house in 
question an actress was performing who, in times gone 
by, figured as the faithless sweetheart of an eminent 
sport in that very city. That gentleman hearing that 
his light of love was about to appear in a new line vis- 
ited the theatre to see for himself whether or not it was 
really she. The memory of past troubles caused him 
to drink rather more than was good for him, and when 
he took his seat in the parquette near the stage, he was 
in a great measure incapacitated from acting with cool- 
ness and judgment. He believed he recognized the 
woman as the one who had caused him so much sorrow 
and trouble. His feelings got the better of him, and 
standing up in his seat he exclaimed : — 

" You cost me $25,000, you cost me $25,000, and 
I'll cut your d — d heart out ! " 

This outcry brought one of the members of the com- 
pany to her assistance, armed with a property revolver, 
and the air was full of war and rumors of war until 
the police arrived. The $25,000 victim was led out 
and the play went on. 

While the parade is on its way back to the circus 
lot, I will tell the reader of an exciting parade that was 
witnessed at Euncorn, England, last summer : Messrs. 
Sanger & Son, who were exhibiting in the town, had 
announced a procession in connection with their great 
hippodrome, and from twelve to one o* clock, although 
rain was falling very heavily, large crowds of people 



t 



THE CIRCUS IS HERE. 



517 



began to assemble in the Market Square, Bridge Street 
and the wide space in front of the Town Hall and the 
public offices. To one very large car forty horses had 
been harnessed, to be driven through the town by one 




TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLAR BEAUTY. 



man. This was drawn up waiting for the start, almost 
opposite the Guardian office, while higher up Bridge 
Street stood twelve ponies harnessed to a smaller car. 
Near the Town Hall stood two other cars, and as one 



518 THE CIRCUS IS HERE. 

o'clock approached and the rain showed signs of abat- 
ing, the procession was expected very shortly to form 
and make the circuit of the town. Suddenly, among 
the horses standing near to the shop of Messrs. Hand- 
ley & Co., there was a great commotion, and loud 
shouts were heard to " Clear the road." The twelve 
ponies had taken fright and were rushing down Bridge 
Street towards the fountain, There was no one in 
charge, and it was evident that some very serious acci- 
dent would result from the panic which seemed to have 
seized the horses. To make matters worse, the forty 
horses became frightened, and, with the ponderous car 
behind them, joined the ponies in their gallop. Many 
persons sought refuge in the shops and doorways. 
Those who were not fortunate enough to reach this 
shelter were trampled upon and crushed, and the scene 
was one of the wildest excitement. At one moment it 
seemed as though the great colossal car would be over- 
turned among -the struggling crowd, while the plate- 
glass windows in the shops on the south side of the street 
were within an inch of being smashed. The scene was 
not of long duration, but it lasted long enough to in- 
jure at least ten people and imperil the safety of hun- 
dreds more. When nearing the commissioners' offices, 
several constables who were in the court-room, hear- 
ing the noise outside, rushed into the street, and were 
just in time to seize the ponies by the heads and turn 
them down Mersey Street before they reached the 
Royal Hotel. The horses, through the courageous 
exertions of the police and some of Messrs. Sanger & 
Son's drivers, were brought to a standstill opposite the 
Royal Hotel. 

Many people affect to be indifferent to the attrac- 
tions of the circus, saying that they saw one when they 
were young and as all circuses are the same there is 



THE CIRCUS IS HERE. 519 

no use in going to see another. These people are 
about right. There has been nothing new in the gen- 
uine features of the circus for the past fifty years. 
There are a few deceptive tricks that have been seen 
only of late years but they are mere ephemeral illu- 
sions, easy of explanation, and time will take them out 
of the circus ring as it took the lion-taming act. I 
can remember the time when the cage of lions was 
dragged into the middle of the arena and amid the 
greatest excitement the alleged lion-tamer went in 
among the animals, beat them about, lay down upon 
the back of one and put his head between the wide- 
open jaws of another. Now that performance is lost 
sight of among the multitude of curiosities in the 
menageries. The great unchangeable features of a 
show, the gymnastic, acrobatic and equestrian work, are 
the same now that it was a half century ago. Still 
with all its want of novelty it is attractive, as are all 
shows, and grown people have been known to share 
the enthusiasm of the little ones in playing circus after 
witnessing a performance and while the sawdust fever 
was still on them. A short, funny sketch that appeared 
in the Louisville Courier- Journal will do to illustrate 
the hold the circus has upon the average boy's heart. 
The writer says : — 

"After the circus had opened to the public yesterday 
a gray-haired colored brother, who held the hand of a 
boy of fourteen as both sto*od gazing at the tent, 
shook his head in a solemn manner, and observed : — 

" 'It's no use to cry 'bout it, sonny, kase we am 
not gwine in dar no how.' 

" < But I want ter,' whined the boy. 

" « In course you does. All chill'en of your aige 
run to evil an' wickedness, an' dey mus' be sot down 
on by dose wid experience.' 



520 



THE CIRCUS IS HERE. 







PLATING CIRCUS, 



" e You used to go,' urged the boy. 
" ' Sartin I did, but what was de result? I had sich 
a load on my conscience dat I couldn't sleep 



nights. 



THE CIRCUS IS HERE. 521 

I cum powerful nigh beiu' a lost man, an' in dem days 
de price of admishun was only a quarter, too.' 

" ' Can't we both git in for fifty cents? ' 

" ' I 'speck we might, but to-morrer you'd be bilin' 
ober wid wickedness an' I'd be a backslipper from de 
church. Hush up, now, kase I hain't got but thirty 
cents, and dar am no show fur crawlin' under de 
canvas . ' 

" The boy still continued to cry, and the old man 
pulled him behind a wagon, and continued : 

" 'Henry Clay Scott, which had you rather do — 
go inter de circus an' den take de awfullest lickin' a 
boy eber got, or have a glass of dat red lemonade an' 
go to Heaben when you die? Befo' you decide let me 
explain dat I mean a lickin' which will take ebery inch 
of de hide off, an' I also mean one of dem big glasses 
of lemonade. In addishun, I would obsarve dat a 
circus am gwine on in Heaben all de time, an' de price 
of admisshun am simply nominal. Now, sah, what 
do you say ? ' 

" The boy took the lemonade, but he drank it with 
tears in his eyes." 

A man living near Bloomington, Illinois, in 1870, 
sold his stove to a neighbor to obtain funds to take 
his family to a circus that had pitched its tents near 
the city. When he got back he said he was not a bit 
sorry, that " he'd seen the clown, an' the gals a ridin's 
an' the fellows doin* flip-flaps, an' waz so perfectly 
satisfied that ef another suck-cus came alon^ next 
year, an' he had a stove, he'd go to see it on the same 



terms ag in. 



CHAPTEE XXXIX, 



UNDER THE CANVAS. 



The one great wish of the small boy's heart, as he 
stands at a respectful distance from the ticket wagon 
watching the huge canvas rise and sink — apparently 
with as much ease as the flag flies from the top of the 
centre-pole — is to get inside the tent before the band 
begins to play. He may not have a cent to pay the 
admission, but he has Micawberish hopes that far 
surpass any money value that might be placed upon a 
small boy, that something will turn up to gain him 
admission to the show. He knows that if the canvas- 
men give him a good chance he can crawl in under the 
cloth and make his way up through the seats. He 
has been told that if he is caught at such a trick the 
showmen will drag him to the dressing-tent and fill 
his hair full of powdered sawdust. The canvas-men 
are, however, viglilant ; besides that, they are lazy 
and do not care to move around, so the small boy 
must be content to throw handsprings in the sawdust- 
sprinkled lot, and keep on hoping until the show is 
out. In this respect the minute boy does not betray 
the same shrewdness credited to a Baltimore girl. 
She was on a visit to her brother's ranche near Austin, 
Texas, when a small circus came along. It is con- 
sidered the acme of honesty to beat the circus in 
that region — in fact, paying is heartily deprecated. 
Although only a month in the place, the Baltimore 
belle was thoroughly imbued with the cowboy spirit, 
(522) 



UNDER THE CANVAS. 



523 



in as far as " beating" the circus was concerned, and 
when the show pitched its tents she made up her mind 
as to what she was going to do. At night, when 




bWS ft** 



" beating" the circus. 



the show was under headway, she calmly approached 
the circus tent on stilts, and viewed the first half 



524 UNDER THE CANVAS. 

of the performance through the opening between the 
canvas and the roof. One of the fighters of the show 
detecting something wrong, crept around with a club 
to " smash" the intruder, but received a kick in the 
eye from the fair stilt performer, and was so taken 
aback that the cowboys had time to rally to her sup- 
port and raid the show while she at a safe distance 
applauded the conquering herders. The troupe left 
town" that night in a sadly damaged condition. 

Until late years circuses generally gave a balloon 
ascension before the afternoon performance took 
place, and sometimes a slack-wire performance was 
added. The latter free exhibition dropped out of sight 
a short time ago, and since 1876 there have been few 
circus balloon ascensions ; they have been abandoned 
on account of the danger and frequency of acci- 
dents. Everybody remembers the fate of Donaldson 
and Greenwood, the former an aeronaut in the employ 
of Barnum at the time, the latter, a Chicago newspaper 
reporter. They left Chicago July 15, 1875, in a tat- 
tered old balloon. It was a remarkably fine day, and 
not the remotest shadow of danger fell across the sun- 
shine. The balloon was carried out over the lake, dis- 
appeared from view, and the fate of the missing men 
was not known until a portion of the tattered balloon 
and the body of Greenwood, with his note-book and 
other articles that helped to identify him, were found 
on the Michigan shore of the great lake. The balloon 
had been wrecked and both men had perished in the 
waves. Donaldson's body was never recovered. An 
imaginary sketch of this fatal trip was written by John 
A. Wise, the aeronaut, who himself perished in Lake 
Michigan while attempting to complete a night ascen- 
sion. He and George Burr started from St. Louis at 
dusk, and as the aerial ship was vanishing into the 



UNDER THE CANVAS, 



525 



clouds it was seen for the last time. 



For weeks not li- 
the balloon. 

They were thought to be lost in the Michigan prairies. 
At last Burr's body was found on the east shore of 
Lake Michigan. Wise's remains were never recov- 
ered. 

A lady balloonist met with a terrible death at 



ing was heard of the missing men or 




WASHINGTON H. DONALDSON. 



Cuantla, Mexico, some time ago. A great crowd as- 
sembled to witness the balloon ascension of Senorita 
Catalina Georgio, a beautiful girl only seventeen years 
old. There was no car attached to the balloon, only 
the trapeze on which the girl performed. The balloon 



526 



UNDER THE CANVAS, 



shot up amid the deafening cheers of the crowd which 
was present. Catalina, meanwhile, was seen clinging 

1§ 




CATALINA GEORGIO'S FRIGHTFUL DEATH. 

to the trapeze and performing daring feats of agility. 
When the balloon was three-quarters of a mile hio-h it 



UNDER THE CANVAS. 527 

suddenly exploded and fell to the ground with the un- 
fortunate girl. Her dead body was found horribly 
crushed and mangled beside the wrecked balloon. 
The remains were tenderly cared for by the natives. 

A frightful balloon accident occurred lately at Cour- 
bevoie, near Paris. A large crowd had assembled to 
witness the novel and perilous ascent of a gymnast 
called August Navarre, who had volunteered to per- 
form a number of athletic feats on a trapeze suspended 
from a Montgolfier balloon named the Vidouvillaise. 
Rejecting the advice of bystanders, Navarre refused 
to allow himself to be tied to the trapeze. There was 
no car attached to the balloon. At about five o'clock the 
Vidouvillaise was let loose from its moorings and rose 
majestically in the air. Navarre, hanging on to the 
trapeze, appeared quite confident, and repeatedly sa- 
luted the spectators. When, however, the balloon 
had reached a height of nearly one thousand yards 
the crowd w T as horrified to see him suddenly let go the 
bar and fall. The descent was watched in breathless 
excitement. At last the body reached the ground, 
striking with such force that it made a hole in the 
earth two feet deep, and rebounded four yards. It 
was crushed and mangled almost beyond recognition. 
Meanwhile the balloon, freed from its human ballast, 
shot up with lightning speed, and soon disappeared 
from view. Late in the evening it burst and fell at 
Meuilmontant, much to the consternation of the in- 
habitants of that busy Parisian quarter. 

The day after Donaldson's fatal ascension, Dave D. 
Thomas, then press agent for Barnum, and filling the 
same place still, made a successful ascension. Mr. 
Thomas is familiar with ballooning, and often laments 
that the days of serial ascensions as circus advertise- 
ments are past. 



528 UNDER THE CANVAS. 

While waiting for the performance to begin let us 
drop into the dressing-tent. It is divided in the mid- 
dle by a strip of canvas about .seven feet wide, and 
this half space is again divided into dressing-rooms, 
one for the men, the other for the women. The large 
space is the green-room of the circus; It is not only 
that, but it is the property-room. The performers are 
preparing for the grand entree. Helmets are lying 
around loose, and wardrobes appear to be in a state of 
great confusion. Cheap velvet gaily bespangled is 
quite plentiful. It looks best at a distauce. Quanti- 
ties of white chalk are brought into use, each man's 
face being highly powdered, his eyebrows blackened, 
etc. The dressing-room is small and there is appar- 
ently much confusion while the performers are donning 
their respective costumes. But each knows what his 
duty is, and does it accordingly, without really inter- 
fering with anyone else. On the other side is the 
ladies' room ; into this we are not permitted to cast 
our profane peepers, but we know from exterior 
knowledge that paint and powder, short dresses and 
flesh tights are rapidly converting ordinary women 
into equestrienne angels. Outside of the dressing- 
rooms are the horses, ranged in regular order. At a 
given signal the riders appear, mount and enter the 
ring. As they are dashing about in apparent reckless- 
ness let us look more clearly at them. They all look 
young and fresh, but there are old men in the party 
who for twenty-five or thirty years have figured in the 
sawdust ring. Chalk hides their wrinkles, dyestuffs 
their gray hairs, and skull caps their baldness. Yon- 
der lady who sits her steed gracefullj T , and who looks 
as blooming as a rose on a June morning, is not only 
a mother, but a grandmother. And there is George 
who was engaged last winter to do " nothing, you 



UNDER THE CANVAS, 529 

know." He finds his duties embrace riding, leaping, 
tumbling, object-holding, and occasionally in short 
times drive a team on the road. There is one rider 
who was formerly a manager himself. He had a big 
fortune once, but a few bad seasons swamped it, and 
he is now glad to take his place as a performer on 
a moderate salary. Returning to the dressing-room 
after the entree, we find the clown engaged in putting 
the finishing touches to his make-up. We must look 
closely at him to recognize him. He does not seem to 
be the same fellow we met at the breakfast table, in 
stylish clothes and a shirt-front ornamented with a 
California diamond. He has given himself an im- 
possible moustache with charcoal, and has painted 
bright red spots on his cheeks. You think him a mere 
boy as he springs into the ring, but he has been a 
mere boy for many a long year, and his bones are get- 
ting stiff and his joints ache in spite of his assumed 
agility. The "gags" that he repeats and the songs 
that make you laugh are not funny to him, for he has 
repeated them in precisely the same inflection for an 
indefinite number of nights. He comes out to play 
for the principal act of horsemanship. Meantime in the 
dressing-room, if it is damp or chilly, the performers 
are wrapping themselves in blankets or moving about 
to keep warm. When the bareback rider returns from 
the ring he usually disrobes, takes a bath and dons his 
ordinary attire ; but the less important performers 
must keep themselves in readiness to render any assis- 
tance which they may be called upon to perform. 

There is but little repose for the weary circus people 
during a season. Frequently they stay but one day in 
a place, and the next town is fifteen or twenty miles 
distant. All the properties must be packed up, the 
helmets and cheap velvet, the tights and the tunics 



530 



UNDER THE CANVAS. 



must be stowed away and the journey made by night. 
The following day brings a recurrence of the dangers 
and toil of circus life. 

A clown who was importuned by some young ladies 
of Mill City, Iowa, as they passed the dressing-tent, to 
let them in, said he'd do it for a kiss from each. There 
were four in the party and they held a brief consulta- 
tion when they came back and wanted to know if one 
kiss wouldn't do. 

" Yes, one each," said Mr. Merry man, who had his 
paint on and looked anything but pretty. 

Again they consulted, and at last agreed. They 
were respectable young ladies and were slow to do 
anything that might compromise them, still they kissed 
the clown, who lifted a flap of the tent and passed in 
each as she paid the oscillatory fee. The kisses did 
his old heart good, and when he went into the ring so 
fresh and happy did he feel that he actually got off a 
new and good joke, which is an extraordinary thing for 
a clown. The clown is pretty much the whole show to 
the little folks, and there are many grown people who 
cherish fondly the childish admiration they had had for 
the retailer of old jokes and singer of poor comic songs. 
He talks and jumps around as lightly as if he were a 
young man ; but often if the reader could be around 
when the chalk and the streaks of black and red have 
been washed off he would see that the light-hearted 
laugh-provoker is an old man wrinkled and gray, and 
that he is to be pardoned for not being able to say 
airything funny that would be new at his time of life. 
I like everything about a clOwn, his clothes, his comi- 
cal hat, his old jokes, his poor voice and his worse 
songs. He tries to amuse other people's children, and 
therefore I am glad when I hear he has children of his 



UNDER THE CANVAS. 531 

own, as the following touching story told in verse has 
something to say about : — 

THE CLOWN'S BABY, 

It was out on the western frontier — 

The miner's, rugged and brown, 
Were gathered around the posters ; 

The circus had come to town ! 
The great tent shone in the darkness, 

Like a wonderful palace of light, 
And rough men crowded the eutrance — 

Shows didn't come every night. 

Not a woman's face among them! 

Many a face that was bad, 
And some that were only vacant, 

And some that were very sad ; 
And behind the canvas curtain, 

In a corner of the place, 
The clown with chalk and vermilion, 

Was " making up " his face. 

A weary-looking woman, 

With a smile that still was sweet, 
Sewed on a little garment, 

With a candle at her feet. 
Pantaloons stood ready and waiting; 

It was the time for the going on, 
But the clown in vain searched wildly 

The " property baby " was gone ! 

He murmured, impatiently hunting, 

"It's strange that I cannot find — 
There ! I've looked in every corner ; 

It must have been left behind." 
The miners were stamping and shouting — 

They were not patient men ; 
The clown bent over the cradle — 
"I must take you, little Ben! " 

The mother started and shivered, 

But trouble and want were near ; 
She lifted her baby gently, 

"You'll be very careful, dear? " 



532 UNDER THE CANVAS. 

" Careful ! You foolish darling — " 

How tenderly it was said ! 
What a smile shone through the chalk and paint - 

" I love each hair of his head! " 

The noise rose into an uproar, 

Misrule for the time was king ; 
The clown, with a foolish chuckle, 

Bolted into the ring. 
But as with a squeak and a flourish, 

The fiddles closed their tune, 
" You hold him as if he was made of glass! " 

Said the clown to Pantaloon. 

The jovial follow nodded: 

" I've a couple myself," he said; 
" I know how to handle 'em, bless you! 

Old fellow, go ahead! " 
The fun grew fast and furious, 

And not one of all the crowd 
Had guessed the baby was alive, 

When he suddenly laughed aloud. 

Oh, that baby-laugh ! It was echoed 

From the benches with a ring, 
And the roughest customer there sprung up 

With "Boys, it's a real thing! " 
The ring was jammed in a minute, 

Not a man that did not strive 
For "A shot at holding the baby — " 

The baby that was " alive! " 

He was thronged by kneeling suitors 

In the midst of the dusty ring, 
And he held his court right royally— 

The fair little baby-king — 
Till one of the shouting courtiers, 

A man with a bold, hard face, 
The talk of miles of the country, 

And the terror of the place, 

Raised the little king on his shoulder, 
And chuckled, " Look at that ! " 

As the baby fingers clutched his hair. 
Then " Boys, hand round that hat! " 

There never was such a hat-full 



UNDER THE CANVAS. 533 

Of silver, and gold, and notes ; 
People are not always penniless 
Because they don't wear coats. 

And then, "Three cheers for the baby! " 

I tell you those cheers were meant ; 
And the way in which they were given 

Was enough to raise the teat. 
And there was a sudden silence, 

And a gruff old miner said : 
" Come boys, enough of this rumpus ! 

It's time it was put to bed." 

So looking a little sheepish, 

But with faces strangely bright, 
The audience, somewhat lingeringly, 

Flocked out into the night. 
And the bold-faced leader chuckled, 

" He wasn't a bit afraid ! 
He's as game as he is good-looking — 

Boys, that was a show that paid ! " 

The public at large has but a very vague idea of how 
a circus is run, and the people, besides the managers 
and regular employees, who make a living by it. When 
the tenting season is about to open, a class of people, 
who in the winter hang about the saloons, variety 
theatres and gambling hells of the large cities, start 
for the circuses to bid for what are known as the 
" privileges," which are, as a rule, understood to em- 
brace not only the candy and lemonade-stands and the 
side-shows, but all sorts of gambling devices by which 
the unsuspecting countryman is fleeced out of his earn- 
ings, or borrowings, as the case may be. Monte men, 
thimble-riggers, sweat-cloth dealers, and all classes of 
gamblers and thieves who have not yet risen to the 
dignity of "working" the watering-places and sum- 
mer resorts, look upon the route of a circus as their 
legitimate field of operation. The circus proprietor 
who rents the lot upon which his tent or tents are 



534 UNDER THE CANVAS. 

pitched has the right to sublet such portions of the 
ground as he does not use, for such purposes as he 
deems proper, and which will not make him personally 
amenable to the laws for whatever crimes may be com- 
mitted there. It has been shown that in many cases 
the managers not only sell to gamblers the privilege of 
locating on the ground and robbing the patrons of the 
circus, but also receive a share of the ill-gotten wealth. 
"There are," said Mr. Coup, the circus owner, to 
an interviewer, " lots of shows with big bank accounts 
who have made their money by actually robbing their 
patrons. They used to swindle on the seats, but that 
is done away with now e/itirely, or nearly so. Of 
course, I am not at liberty to mention names, but I 
could astonish you by designating shows the managers 
of which have made the greater portion of their money 
in this way. But a great trick which is being practised 
is this : A man is sent ahead of the show who is not 
known to have any connection whatever with it. In 
fact, he denies that he has anything to do with it, and 
yet he is really employed by the managers. This man 
canvasses the town and finds some man who has a big 
bank account and who is gullible enough to confide in 
strangers. The agent makes his acquaintance, gets 
into his confidence, and then with a great show of 
secrecy informs him how he can make a pile of money 
when the circus comes along. The innocent citizen 
bites at the bait and is steered against a gambling 
scheme either inside or outside of the tent, and loses 
often large sums of money. Perhaps he is a man 
whose social standing prevents him from making his 
loss known, or, more frequently, he fails to suspect the 
agent, who blusters around and declares that he, too, 
has lost money on the scheme. And thus the show 
goes from town to town, making almost as much by 



UNDER THE CANVAS. 535 

stealing from its patrons as it does at the ticket wagon. 
There are shows which make from $30,000 to $40,000 
a season in this way and that goes a good way toward 
paying for their printing, and is quite an item. I have 
made war on these fellows for years and am determined 
to keep it up. If I cannot run a show without having 
a lot of gambling schemes attached to it, why then I'll 
stop running a show. I abolished everything of the 
kind last season, even down to the selling of lemonade 
in the seats. I allow lemonade to be sold now, but 
the men are w r atched carefully and the first one caught 
swindling my patrons, off goes his head." 

" Do you not find it difficult to keep gamblers and 
confidence men away from your show? " 

"I did at first, but it is now known among them 
that I will not allow it and they keep away. My life 
has been threatened several times just on account of 
this, but I still live and still propose to keep up the 
fight. I have been offered as high as $1,000 a week 
for the privilege to rob my patrons by camp-followers, 
so you can see that the privilege is worth something. 
In Georgia a gang threatened publicly to kill me on 
sight for refusing to let them hang around my tents, 
but some of my men went for them and cleaned them 
out very effectually. The side-show privileges are sold 
only on condition that no gambling shall be carried on 
in the tents and that the patrons shall not be swindled 
in anyway. The side-shows can be made to pay with- 
out robbery. Last season the side-shows that traveled 
with my show, made $75,000, which was more than I 
made." 



CHAPTER XL. 



ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 

Nearly every man connected with the ring work of a 
circus is an acrobat of one kind or other. His ability 
may be limited to turning a single somersault, still he 
will be brought into the arena with the rest of the 
company and opportunity will be afforded him to do 
his best. It is not expected, however, to recruit the 
ranks from such a class. Children must be trained to 
the profession, and a long and arduous training it 
requires. If their parents are professionals their 
studies will be all the more severe, and cuffs and blows 
will be the only encouragement given their struggling 
children. Fathers have been known to beat their sons, 
to kick them in the presence of the audience, and to 
add other and severer punishment when the young, 
acrobat reaches home. The Society for the Prevention 
of Cruelty to Children could find plenty to do in pre- 
venting brutal parents from abusing their little folks, 
if not in putting an end entirely to the swift and rough 
training that boys are put through in order that they 
may be hired out or leased to circus managers, In 
New York I understand that broken-down ring per- 
formers have schools in which boys are taught every 
branch of the circus business, just' as there are riding 
schools where young men and young women may learn 
pad-riding and go even as far as riding bareback. The 
schools for acrobats are usually conducted by cruel, 
heartless fellows who urge the pupils to their tasks 

(536) 



ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 



537 



with a club, and while forgetting to say a kind word 
when the pupil has done well, will never fail to say a 




MLLE GERALDINE AND LITTLE GERRY. 



harsh one when any mistake has been made. These 
places are filled up with all the appliances of a gym- 



538 ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 

nasium — bars, ropes, weights, trapezes, tight-rope, 
etc. Circus managers in want of talent for small shows 
going South or West apply here and take their choice 
of the boys. A bargain is quickly made and the child, 
formany of them are still mere children, goes forth 
to join the throng engaged from April until October in 
amusing the public in the sawdust arena. 

When the child gets into the circus ring there need 
be hope of no further sympathy. Its task is set and 
must be done at all hazards. A failure one time to 
accomplish a feat must be followed by another and 
another attempt until the feat is at last satisfactorily 
presented. Olive Logan was at a circus performance 
at Cincinnati at which she witnessed an extraordinary 
instance of cruelty on the part of a circus proprietor to 
a child rider. The circus was owned and managed by 
a certain clown. The clown-proprietor, Miss Logan 
goes on to say, introduced a little girl to the audience, 
saying that she would exhibit her skill in riding. He 
stated that the horse was somewhat unused to the ring 
and if it should happen that the rider fell, no one need 
entertain any apprehension of serious accident, as the 
arena was soft and injury would be impossible. It was 
surely an unhappy introduction for the child, and cal- 
culated to fill her with fear and doubt. The child 
whirled rapidly round the ring two or three times, using 
neither rein nor binding strap. She stood on one 
foot, then changed to the other. After this she was 
called upon to jump the stretchers. Had her horse 
been well trained, the feat would have been no very 
difficult one. But she became entangled in the cloth 
and fell to the ground, under the horse's feet. She 
was placed again on the back of the horse and com- 
pelled once more to try the feat. Her fail had not 
given her new confidence and she fell a second time. 



ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 



539 



Again 



Evidently much against her inclination and in spite of 
her trembling and her tears, nature's protest against 
barbarity, she was tossed again to her place. But her 
nerve had gone. She was utterly demoralized. Judg- 
ment of distance, and faith in herself were lost, 
she attempted to execute 
the leap. Again she fell to 
the ground, striking heav- 
ily upon her head. She 
rolled directly under the 
horse's feet and only by 
a sheer chance escaped a 
terrible death. The au- 
dience, — more merciful 
than those within the ring, 
by this time had been 
thoroughly aroused and in- 
dignant. Cries and shouts 
were heard from all quar- 
ters : " Shame ! shame ! " 
"That'll do!" "Take 
her out ! take her out ! " 
came up from every side. 
It would not answer to 
disregard such commands, 
and with a smile the ring 
master went to the child, 
raised her from the dust 
where she lay, and led her, crying and sobbing, to the 
dressing-tent. 

The men and women who perform at dizzy heights 
on the trapeze and flying rings frequently meet with 
terrible accidents. Still the difficulty of these feats is 
being constantly increased, and performers, not satis- 
fied with having their eyes open during their perilous 




TRAPEZE. 



540 ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 

flight from one trapeze to another, envelope their heads 
in sacks, and although not wholly blinding themselves, 
very materially interfere with the vision, which in all 
such instances should not be obstructed. A typical 
accident of the trapeze kind happened at a performance 
of old John Robinson's circus at South Pueblo, Col- 
orado, on June 12, 1882. While the Alfredo Family 
were performing on the trapeze, the stake which sup- 
ports the rope pulled out of the ground, _which had 
been softened by the afternoon storm, and let the per- 
formers — three in number, William, Lewis, and his 
wife, Emma Alfredo — suddenly to the ground. The 
act is a sort of double bicycle and trapeze performance. 
William propels a bicycle back and forth on a line 
stretched from pole to pole, and Lewis and Emma 
perform on two trapeze-bars suspended from the bi- 
cyle. When the stake pulled up last night the rope 
collapsed just at the moment that Lewis was hanging 
by his feet from the lower bar and Emma from the 
upper, both straight down, with arms folded. Emma 
caught herself on the lower bar and the side ropes, 
but her husband fell straight to the ground, alighting 
on the back of his head, the fall being twelve or four- 
teen feet. He was at once removed to his dressing- 
room, and the physicians who were summoned said 
that his spine was injured. Half an hour later he was 
removed to a hotel, where he died at four p. m., 
June 13th. 

A gymnast who fell from a trapeze in New Orleans 
gave the following account of his sensations: "Amid 
the sea of faces before me I looked for a familiar one, 
but in vain, and, turning, I stepped back to the rope 
by which we ascended to the trapeze, and going up hand 
over hand was soon seated in my swinging perch. As 
I looked down I caught sight of a face in one of the 



o © 



ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 541 

boxes, that tit once attracted my attention. It was 
that of a beautiful girl, with sweet bine eyes, and 
golden hair fall ins: unconfined over her shoulders in 
heavy, waving masses. Her beautiful eyes, turned 
toward me, expressed only terror at the seeming dan- 
ger of the performer, and for the moment I longed to 
assure her of my perfect safety, but my brother was 
by my side and we began our performance. In the 
pauses for breath I could see that sweet face, now pale 
as death, and the bine eyes staring wide open with 
fear, and I dreaded the effect of onr finish, which — 
being the drop act — gives the uninitiated the impres- 
sion that both performers are about to be dashed head- 
long to the stage. Having completed the double 
performance I ascended to the upper bar, and, casting 
off the connect, we began our combination feats. 
While hanging by my feet in the upper trapeze, my 
brother being suspended from my hands (the lower 
bar being drawn back by a super), I felt a slight 
shock, and the rope began slowly to slip past my foot. 
My heart gave a grand jump, and then seemed to stop, 
as I realized our awful situation. The lashing which 
held the bar had parted, the rope was gliding round 
the bar, and in another moment we should be lying 
senseless on the stage. I shouted ' under' to the ter- 
rified * super,' who instantly swung the bar back to its 
place, and I dropped my brother on it as the last 
strand snapped and I plunged downward. I saw the 
lower bar darting toward me and I made a desperate 
grasp at it, for it was my last chance. I missed it ! 
Down through the air I fell, striking heavily on the 
stage. The blow rendered me senseless and my col- 
lar bone was broken. I was hurried behind the scenes, 
and soon came to my senses. My first thought was 
that I must go back and go through my performance 



542 



ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 






at once, and I actually made a dash for the stage 

but I was restrained, and it was many weeks before I 
was able to perform again.'' 

The circus-goers of a decade ago were accustomed 
to tight-rope and slack-wire performances in the ring, 
when old men and young women, emulative of the cel- 




MDME. LASALLE. 

ebrated Blondin, went through some wonderful evolu- 
tions in mid-air. Now the tight-rope and loose wire 
have both almost entirely disappeared from the ring, 
and only in the small shows are they given a place in 
the programme. Still there are many excellent per- 
formers in this line who find employment on the variety 
stage among specialty people. The best of these is 
Zanfretti, the pantomime clown, who though an old 



ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 543 

man displays wonderful agility when with balance-pole 
in hand he finds himself at the half-way point on his 
rope. Ladies who have taken to the hempen path 
have attained prominence as rope-walkers. One of 
the most beautiful and at the same time dangerous, of 
the performances that the small shows offer to their 
audiences is that of Madame Lasalle, who places her 
little eight-year-old daughter in a wheelbarrow filled 
with flowers, and on a rope thirty feet above the 
ground without net beneath and with nothing but 
hard ground to receive both in case of a fall, trundles 
the barrow over a long rope while the people below 
4ook up in breathless fear lest the barrow tip and 
a dreadful accident result before the feat is accom- 
plished. Tight-rope walking, however, is not nearly 
so difficult as it appears to be. The performer needs 
steady nerves, a cool eye, firm limbs and a balance- 
pole, the last-named article being the most essen- 
tial. Training is required, of course, but it is not of 
the rigorous and protracted kind that other feats de- 
mand. 

The training of riders is not so difficult or attended 
with such dangers, although it is perilous enough. If 
a circus-rider has a son or daughter he wishes to brin°' 
up for the ring he will begin by carrying the child, as 
soon as it is strong enough, upon the horse with him, 
thus accustoming it to standing upon the animal in 
motion ; but if a boy or girl is taken up at an age 
when it is no longer easy to carry him around the ring' 
on the back of a horse, he is put in training with what 
the circus people call " the mechanic." This is a beam 
extending out from a pivoted centre-pole and having a 
rope hanging down at the edge of the ring with a strap 
at the end which is fastened around the pupil's waist. 
The rope is long enough to allow the pupil to stand 



544 ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 

upon the back of an animal, and by means of its sup- 
port he is kept in an upright position until he gets 
accustomed to the motion of a horse, and is prevented 
from falling should he miss his footing. He begins 
with a pad on the back of a gentle animal, and keeps 
on with ''the mechanic" until he is able to stand 
alone on the horse, from which time on the pad is dis- 
carded and the pupil goes it bareback. Ed. Showles, 
a good rider and prominent in his line, told me that it 
takes about six months to break a boy in so that he 
will be able to ride fairly, but that a girl maybe taught 
in three months. 

This training goes on during the winter months 
while the circus is in quarters. A small ring is always 
a department of the winter quarters, and in this the 
trained animals are kept in practice and new ones are 
broken in, the whip being freely used upon all in giv- 
ing them their lessons. A horse that is intended for 
the educated class after having acquired the ordinary 
manoeuvres, for instance, must learn to get up on his 
hind legs and paw the air with the fore legs, as we see 
them in pictures of the Ukraine stallions, etc. To do 
this the animal must have his haunches strengthened. 
By whipping the fore legs he is made gradually to rise 
on the hind ones. The horse finds it difficult at first, 
but judicious whipping gets him up in the air at last 
and the sight of the threatening whip keeps him the. * 
as long as there is strength in his haunches to keep 
him up. 

" The work of the leading equestrienne is one of the 
most laborious in the whole range of the circus pro- 
fession. It requires physical courage of the highest 
order, combined with great power of endurance and a 
capacity for adopting oneself to a constant change of 
scene and surrounding. People who witness only the 




ANNIE LIVINGSTONE 



ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 545 

brilliant performances in the ring in an atmosphere 

laden with light and music, little dream of the weari- 
some toil and drudgery which precede them." 

The speaker was Miss Lilly Deacon, a fair-haired 
English lady, with the form of a Juno, who arrived in 
this country from London sometime ago to fill an en- 
engagement as leading equestrienne in Forepangh's 
circus. As she appeared in the parlor in an interview 
with a Philadelphia reporter, she might naturally have 
been taken for the preceptress of some fashionable 
English boarding-school, or the daughter of some 
stiff old country squire of Kent or Sussex — or anybody, 
in fact, rather than the daring rider whose perform- 
ances have bewildered and startled the circus-Groins: 
multitude of London, Paris, and Berlin. In feature 
and manner her appearance was that of the English 
o-entlewoman, while her conversation throuo-hout re- 
vcaled a delicacy of thought and expression common 
only to the well-bred lady. 

" The training necessary to success in equestrian 
performances," continued Miss Deacon, " is monoto- 
nous in the extreme and in some parts very dangerous. 
None but those in rugged health ever withstand it, and 
no one without a perfect physical organization should 
undertake it. The ordinary exercises of the riding- 
school are trifles as compared with the tasks imposed 
in professional training. When a woman has obtained 
all the knowledge to be acquired in a riding-school, 
she has only got the rudiments of real equestrian art. 
She must then enter the circus ring and familiarize 
herself with the duties required of her there. She 
must be prepared to endure falls and bruises without 
number, together with frequent scoldings and correc- 
tions from the instructors. No woman, unless she be 
possessed of extraordinary natural skill, ought to ap- 



546 



ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 



pear in the ring before an audience until she has grad- 
uated from a riding-school, and then practised in the 




ring four or five hours every day for at least six months. 
Those six months will be a period of torture and weari- 
ness to her, but she must undergo them or run the risk of 



ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 547 

almost certain failure and humiliation upon her first 
appearance in public. 

" The best equestrian instructor in Europe — in fact 
the only one of established reputation — is M. Sal- 
monsky of Berlin. He is one of the grandest horse- 
men in the world, and in his great circus includes some 
of the finest stock on the continent. He saw me first 
in London, my native place, many years ago when I 
was performing with my brothers and sisters in Hen- 
ley's Regent Street circus, and offered to take me with 
him to Berlin and complete my training. I accepted, 
and entered his circus at the German capital, where I 
received the most careful instruction he could give 
me. 

" M. Salmonsky would send me into the ring with 
his most spirited horses every day and stand by to 
direct my exercises. Sometimes I thought I should 
never survive the terrible discipline, and often thought 
I should go back to London and content myself with be- 
ing a second-rate rider, but the kindness of my good old 
instructor softened the innumerable bumps and bruises 
I received, and I at last triumphed. Emperor William 
and the crown prince attended the circus the night I 
made my debut, and complimented me formally and 
personally from their box. 

" M. Salmonsky's course of training is very rigid, 
and that accounts for its thoroughness. The pupil 
must surrender wholly to the instructor and become 
very much as a ball of wax in his hands. At the out- 
set, however, the scholar must obtain complete mas- 
tery of her horses. Fear is a quality utterly hostile 
to successful equestrianism, and unless the pupil can 
banish it at the start, she had better give up her am- 
bition and abandon the profession. She will never 



548 ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 

succeed so long as she is afraid either of herself or her 
horses. 

"But, as I said before, no one unacquainted with 
the dangerous preparatory instruction of an eques- 
trienne has any proper estimate of the toil and weari- 
ness which her performances represent. One never 
knows the boundless capacity of the human frame for 
pains and aches until one has gone into training for 
circus-riding. What, with unruly horses, uncomfort- 
able saddles, and the violent exercise involved, five or 
six hours of practice every day for months is certain 
to do one of two things — it either kills the pupil or 
brings her up to the perfection of physical womanhood. 
The hours for practice adopted by M. Salmonsky were 
in the forenoon — generally from eight to twelve, 
with, perhaps, another hour or two in the evening. 
To withstand this course one must dress loosely and 
become a devotee to plain living and the laws of 
hygiene. Any neglect of those principles, or any great 
loss of sleep usually results in broken health and pro- 
fessional failure. 

"A great many persons who have the idea that the 
life of a circus star is a happy one — that it is a round 
of gorgeous tulle, tinsel, and ring-master -embel- 
lished splendor — would be sadly shocked if they 
could get a glimpse of the real thing. These people 
are mistaken. It is really a life of hard work at pretty 
much all hours of the day. When the splendid Mile. 
Peerless isn't speeding around the ring, lashing her 
spirited bare-back horse to fury, amid the plaudits 
of admiring thousands, she is mending her tights, 
stitching tinsel on her costume, annointing her bruises 
with balsam, or practising. The practice of the circus 
rider is like the rehearsal of the actor, only more so, 
for while the actor has only to rehearse until his first 



ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 549 

performance and then can go on playing a part without 
further trouble, the rider must put in an hour or two 
every day to keep her joints limber and her muscles in 
proper trim. But for this daily practice the perform- 
ances of our circuses would be the theatre of many a 
tragedy instead of the scenes of mirth and gladness 
that they are. 

The fascination that the circus has for people who 
know nothing about its hardships, is illustrated in the 
case of a Georgia lady, who lived in luxury, and whose 
husband was numbered among the most prominent of 
the State's citizens. She became imbued with a de- 
sire that she would like to sport tights and gauze 
dresses, and whirl about the ring on a spirited horse, 
so she struck up acquaintance with an equestrian, who 
happened to come along with a fly-by-night show, 
and eloped with him. The husband followed the 
show to Texas some months afterwards, and had an 
interview with his wife, who had became an equestrienne 
in a small way, doing a pad- riding act- in each perform- 
ance. An interview with the lady failed to make her 
see her folly. The husband now grew desperate, 
went away and hired a lot of cowboys whom he took 
to the show with the understanding that as soon as 
Mile. Eulalia (the wife's adopted name) put in an ap- 
pearance they were to rush forward, and seizing her 
carry her from the tent. When the lady appeared and 
had been lifted upon the horse by the clown, and the ring- 
master was touching up the heels of the animal to get 
him into a funeral jog, the husband and cowboys ad- 
vanced. The husband seized his wife, dra^oed her 
from the horse, and while the cowboys fought back 
the performers and attaches he got her into a carriage 
and drove her away, leaving the audience in the wildest 
state of excitement. Kind words and gentle treat- 



550 



ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 



ment brought the woman back to her senses, and she is 
now in her Georgia home and does not want any more 
circus experience. 

A Paris correspondent tells us that the funeral of 
that charming circus rider, Emilie Loisset, who was 




killed in April, 1882, was a Parisian event. The poor 
girl had long inhabited the United States, and had the 
freedom of manner and self-respect which so often dis- 
tinguish the American young lady. She was on horse- 
back one of the most graceful creatures imaginable. 
The figure was lithe, but without meagreness. Her 
poses in the saddle were simply exquisite, and they 



ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 551 

appeared unstudied. The features were elegantly 
formed, and the eyes expressed a brave, kind soul. 
Emilie Loisset was more popular than Sarah Bern- 
hardt had ever been in Paris. Her less successful 
rivals in the circus were brought by her exceeding 
amiability to pardon her public triumphs. She did 
not seem ever to excite jealousy. On the days and 
nights on which she performed the circus was crowded 
with fashionable people. There was no amount of 
wealth that she might not have possessed had she not 
been a proud, strong-willed, self-respecting girl. She 
had no carriage and used to walk from the hippodrome 
to the Rue Oberkampf, where she had a small lodging 
on the fifth floor. A number of aristocratic and plu- 
tocratic admirers used to escort her to the door, 
through which none of them were allowed by her to 
pass. She aspired to create for herself a happy home 
and to marry somebody whom she could love and 
esteem. Her sister, Clotilde, is the morganatic wife 
of the Prince de Reuss, brother of the German ambas- 
sador at Constantinople, and is looked up to in her 
family circle. The admiration of the Empress Eliza- 
beth for Emilie was increased by the fact that the 
charming circus rider spurned the address of the crown 
prince of Austria. 

He was very much in love with her when she was in 
Germany, a couple of years ago, and would have for- 
sworn marriage if she would have consented to be his 
Dubarry. She did not like the young man, and told 
him so. The empress, when she was here, used to 
make appointments to ride in the Bois with Emilie. 
Her majesty thought the ecuyere charming to look at, 
but wanting in firmness of hand. The horse on which 
she rode with imperial Elizabeth in the shaded alleys 
of the Bois was the one that occasioned her death by 



552 ACROBATICS AND EQUESTRIANISM. 

rolling over on her and driving the crutch of the 
saddle into her side. The august lady noticed the 
hardness of the brute's mouth, and the teasing and at 
the same time irresolute way in which Emilie held her 
bridle. 

Emilie Loisset aimed at classic purity of style. 
There was nothing sensational in her manner. Her 
imperial friend Elizabeth thought her the most lady- 
like person she had seen in Paris. Her gestures were 
simple, her address amiable, and there was serious- 
ness even in her smiles. Members of the Jockey 
Club spoke to her hat in hand. Her death was 
entirely clue to the hard mouth of her horse. At a 
rehearsal the horse turned round, made for the stable, 
and, finding the door shut against him, reared up 
on his hind legs. Balance was lost, the horse rolled 
over, and the crutch of the saddle smashed in the 
ribs upon the lungs and heart. Poor Emilie had the 
courage in this state to walk to the infirmary, and 
when she was taken home to mount five flights of 
stairs. 



CHAPTER XLI. 



A ROMANCE OF THE RING. 



There is a great deal of romance in the life of a 
circus performer ; and as the theatrical world is often 
penetrated ill search of subjects rich in fiction, so, 
too, romancers enter the circus ring to find a hero o-r 
heroine for an o'er-true tale. In a Western paper I 
found the following pretty and touching story, which 
had evidently been copied from some other paper 
without credit, and which, as it deals with circus life, 
and particularly that feature of it we have just left — 
equestrianism — I believe it will be found interesting, 
and in reproducing it regret that I am unacquainted 
with the source whence it came, as the publication in 
which it originally appeared certainly deserves men- 
tion : — 

The North American Consolidated Circus was to 
show in Shadowville. Shadowville was named after 
a legend of a haunted shadow that envelopes the town 
after sunset ; and long before the canvas flaps were 
drawn back and the highly gilded ticket- wagon, with 
the " electric ticket seller " was ready to change green- 
backs for the red-backed " open sesame," the ground 
and two streets leading to the lot were crowded with an 
anxious, expectant, peanut-munching, chewing-gum- 
masticating collection. The large posters and hand- 
bills announced in highly colored style the arrival of 
"Miss Nannie Florenstein, the most wonderful bare- 
back rider in the known world!" while the little 

(553) 



554 A ROMANCE OF THE RING. 

" gutter snipes" simply begged the people to " wait 
for Miss Nannie Floren stein." 

The*' doors are thrown open," and in less than 
twenty minutes the immense canvas is rising and 
falling with the concentrated respirations of five thou- 
sand people. Such a crowd ! Charles Dickens, An- 
thony Trollope, or Bret Harte would have been in 
ecstacies at the curious collection of faces, costumes, 
and vernacular, not to mention the expressions of 
genuine enthusiasm or surprise at the entries into 
the ring of even the sawdust rakers. 

The band has ended its attempt at one of Strauss' s 
waltzes, and the master of ceremonies, Mr. Lunt, 
walks consequentially into the ring, bowing to the 
vast concourse, who applaud at — they scarce know 
what. 

" This way, Mr, Oliphant." 

"Aye, aye, sir ! 'Ere hi ham. Ah, sir ! this bevy 
of smiling faces is refreshing even to the sawdust. 
[Applause.] What shall we have now, sir?" asks 
the jester (?) as he throws his hat in the air and 
catches it on — the ground. 

"Mr. Tom Karl." 

" Not the tender singer, sir? " 

"You mean tenor singer! No! The pad rider, 
sir." 

"It's all the same, Mr. Lunt; but time's flying. 
Ah! here is Karl! Now, then, Mr. Karl, that's the 
way I used to ride — (aside) in my mind." 

And so it goes. One act after another, each one 
showing agility, daring, and skill ; while the old jester 
and ring master entertain the crowd and rest the per- 
formers. 

"Miss Nannie Florenstein, ladies and gentlemen, 
will now have the honor of appearing before you in 



A ROMANCE OF THE RING. 555 

her wonderful bareback act — riding a wild, untamed 
horse without either bridle, saddle or surcingle. An 
act never before accomplished — although often at- 
tempted — by any lady in the world! Miss Nannie 
Florenstein ! " 

A lithe, pretty little lady, with an anxious, care- 
worn face, stepped into the ring, and, acknowledging 
the applause of the audience, vaulted lightly on the 
back of her black horse, and quicker than a flash 
of lightning was off. Around and around the forty- 
two-foot circle she goes, pirouetting, posturing, and 
doing a really graceful and wonderful act. 

She is what all the papers had claimed she would 
be. There is a spirit of reckless daring flashing from 
her dark eyes as she jumps " the banners," and even 
the old and stoical ring master watches her anxiously 
as she attempts one act more daring than the rest — 
that of standing on her tip-toes on the horse's hind- 
quarters and slowly pirouetting as the animal con- 
tinues his mad career. 

Suddenly she reels. She has lost her balance. 
Over she goes. Her head has struck the ring board. 
A shriek of a thousand anxious voices rends the air, 
and all is confusion. 

She is bleeding, bleeding profusely from a cut in her 
forehead. A hundred hands are ready to convey her 
to the dressing-tent. 

A rough-hewn specimen of a man suddenly appears 
in their midst. Where he came from or what moved 
him no one knows. 

" Stand back ! stand back, I say, and give the gal 
air ! Do ye hear ? ' ' 

Instinctively every one obeys him. 

" Yere's a doctor. Doctor, this gal I know. 'Tend 
ter her, an' look ter me for the perkisites." 



556 A ROMANCE OF THE RING. 

A quiet, confident-looking gentleman, Dr. Adams, is 
already by her side, stopping the flow of blood, and 
under his directions she is conveyed to her dressing- 
tent, the miner, tall, athletic, and with immense, sun- 
burned beard, following anxiously in the rear. 

The performance has been renewed and the crowd 
are forgetting the accident, when the miner appears in 
the ring dragging after him a performer, Monsieur La 
Forge, as he is called, "the strongest man in the 
world," who resists with all his might the iron muscles 
that are clinched like a vice on his collar. 

A trapeze act is being performed, but all eyes are 
on the miner and his victim, not one of the performers 
having interfered, as they all dislike and fear La Forge 
for his bullying, bragadocio character. 

" Leddies and gintlemin, this yere coyote am ther 
cause on that yere young gal er falling. I knows 'em 
both. He wanted ter kill her. Yes, yer did, ye 
skunk ! He stole her when she war a chile from my 
sister. I knowed him ; I knoAved her. He hearn I 
was coming ter-day and he sed that he'd kill her. 
~Li\y down, yer he-bar ! Lay down, I say. 

" I was standing close on ter this ring when I seed 
him fire sumthing at her. She turned her putty ej r es 
to see what it wur and over she went. Mister per- 
formers, ye'll 'sense me fur interruptin' yer perform- 
ances, but I thought I'd let these yere know who this 
skunk is. Now, then, Meester Ler Forgey, alias John 
Rafferty, what have yer got to say to my statement ? ' ' 

"Hans: him! Hanor him! Strangle him!" broke 
in the crowd as they left their seats and rushed for the 
ring. 

"Back! Back! Yer shan't hang him! Do yer 
hear? Ther fust man that raises a fino;er to throttle 



A ROMANCE OF THE RING. 557 

him, I'll pile in that yere saw dust! Do yer 
hear?" 

His revolver levelled at the angry, grumbling crowd 
held them back. They all knew him. All knew old 
Ned Struthers, the most daring and best shot on the 
frontier ; a man whom the redskins feared more than 
a whole army of trained United States soldiers ; a 
remnant of a race of men who could settle the Indian 
question quicker, better, and with less expense than a 
whole army of Indian whiskey-selling agents ; a man 
who they knew was dangerous and vindictive when 
aroused. So all kept their distance. 

"Now, thin, yer goll-darned skunk, git up off yer 
knees! Git!" 

" The doctor says Miss Florenstein is dying! " the 
ring master, pale and breathless, announced as he ran 
into the ring. 

"Dying, did yer say, Mister? Oh, yer mean rat- 
tlesnake! Pray she may live — pray! Ef she dies, 
I'll hang } T er scalp on her coffin ! Do you hear? " 

Poor Eafferty, by the intervention of the sheriff, 
who had a free pass to the show, and was present, was 
released from Ned Struthers' s hold and taken away to 
the lock-up while Ned hurried to the bedside of his 
sister's child, Miss Nannie Florenstein. 

She tossed and moaned upon her improvised bed 
of straw, an anguish-stricken few around her ; for 
she was loved by the company. Her lustreless eyes 
would open appealingly, and looking with tear-bedim- 
med expression at some familiar face near her, try to 
smile them a recognition — a sad, painful recognition. 

The doctor knelt beside her with one hand on her 
pulse and one on her bandaged forehead, and as he no- 
ticed the weary, faint pulsation, would shake his head, 
prophetic of her death. 



558 A ROMANCE OF THE RING. 

The flaps of her tent are raised, and old Ned 
Struthers, hat in hand, looks in, asking in a mute 
way permission to enter. The doctor sees him and 
beckons him to her side. 

Nannie hears his footstep as it crushes the straw be- 
neath his weight, and, slowly opening her eyes, looks 
at him in an indifferent, inquisitive way. Suddenly 
they brighten ; she closes them as if to think — in a 
minute opens them with a glad smile of affectionate 
recognition lighting up her handsome, pale face, raises 
her weak hand, beckons him to her, and as he takes 
her little fingers into his brawny palm she pulls him 
gently to her and whispers something in his ear. She 
cannot speak loud. 

Old Ned cannot keep back the tears as they slowly 
run down bis bronzed cheek and are lost in the shadow 
of his beard. He has now knelt beside her and an- 
swers her whispered question. 

" Yes, little un ! I'm yer uncle — yer loving uncle ! 
Get well, little un, and I'll take care on yer." He 
could say no more. 

She, poor little bruised body, turns to him a grate- 
ful smile of affection, and again drawing him to her, 
kisses his wrinkled old forehead, while the group who 
are silent witnesses of the scene turn away their heads 
in silent sorrow. 

" Say, Doctor, can't we move her to sum more kum- 
fortable quarters? — to ther hotel? Her aunty lives 
some twenty miles from yere, and I'll send for her." 

Again Nannie opened her eyes, looking anxiously at 
the doctor, but a shadow darkened the tent opening 
and a young, handsome-faced man enters ; instantly 
her eyes meet his, and she beckons him to her, and 
drawing him down to her side, whispers a few words in 
his ear. His face brightens, and turning to Ned — 



A ROMANCE OF THE RING. 559 

who is curiously watching this last scene — puts out a 
hard, muscular hand as he says : — 

" Mr. Struthers, Nannie tells me you are her uncle. 
I am en^a^ed to be married to Nan." 

Old Ned eyed him curiously and doubtingly as he 
replies : — 

" Wal, sir ! what Nan tells yer is gospel truth. I'm 
her uncle ; but about the other part of the bizness I 
ain't so sartin " — but seeing Nan's troubled face ap- 
pealingly turned to him, he continues : " But was she 
right? Nan ou^hter be married. Ef she was she 
wouldn't be yere, a jumping on bar horses' backs, he 
showing her — I mean, sir, she oughter be at hum, and 
I'd do thar barback ridin' for ther crowd — thet is, our 
leetle crowd, ter hum ; but 'scuse me, we must move 
Nan — what's yer bizness, sir? " 

" I' m in the same business as Nan ; we were brought 
up together, trained together, and next week we were 
to be married." 

" Together, I serpose? " laughingly answered Ned, 
as he saw Nan brighten and smile at her intended's 
words. 

Nan was carefully removed to a hotel, the proprie- 
tor of the circus defraying all the necessary expenses 
of a large room and extra attendance. Old Ned was 
about to start for his sister's, Nan's aunt, to attend 
her, as the doctor had taken a more hopeful view of 
her recovery if properly nursed, when he, entering the 
bar-room of the hotel, preparatory to starting, was 
suddenly made aware that he was the target of at least 
a dozen eyes, all staring with a perplexed gaze at him. 
First he thought it might be something in his dress, 
but this he quickly ascertained was not so ; then he 
surveyed his face in the mirror opposite. At last he 
got angry. 



560 A ROMANCE OF THE RING. 

" What are ye all staring at? Do I owe en ny on 
yer ennything, eh? " He was defiant now. 

"No, Mr. Struthers, you don't owe anybody here 
anything that I am aware of! We have congregated 
here to congratulate you. We have heard you had re- 
covered your niece and your mine, and we come, as 
iellow-townsmen, to congratulate you." It was the 
town justice who spoke. 

" My neese, pardner, I've diskivered, but ther mine 
I wanter sell out to-morrow, and " 

" Mr. Struthers, here's a telegram for you." A 
messenger boy handed him a telegram. 

" Read that fir me, jidge, will yer?" And he 
handed the telegram to the justice of the peace. 

" Mr. Struthers, it is an offer from Col. Allston, of 
San Francisco. He says : ' I will give you three hun- 
dred thousand dollars and one quarter share for your 
Red Gulch mine. Answer. Pay in cash.' That's 
all, sir, only the news has been on the street for half 
an hour ! ' ' 

" Wal, I declare that's prime news ! Let's take a 
drink, boys. Squire, you jist answer that tillygram, 
will yer? Tell Kurnel Allston I'll take the offer, and 
he may send the cash yere. Say, boys, thet's gud 
news, but I must tell my neese ! " 

" Mr. Struthers, before you go will you tell us about 
your niece ? " 

" Sartlingly ! Yer see boys, abeout fifteen years 
agone my sister died an' left har leetle one — Nannie 
was her name — left her with a widder woman in 
'Fresco. I war away in Nevady ; hed only been gone 
three months. The young un war only nine y'ars old, 
an' when I got thet news I war struck dumb. Yer see, 
my sister hed heart disease. I started with my pack 
mule fir 'Fresco, but whin I 'rived thar the young un 



A ROMANCE OF THE RING. 561 

and the widder war gone. I hearn she hed gone to 
Brazzel with her husband, a man named Rafferty, a 
sirkus performer, so I waited. Abeout thet time I 
was takin sick with small-pox, and whin I got well I 
could not get no news on thet young un, so I gave up 
thar trial. Abeout one month ago I war at Red Gulch 
Canyon, er staking off my 'find,' whin Jim Parkins, 
my ole pard, wrote me from San Yosea thet my leetle 
un war with this yere sirkus, and thet her name was 
Nannie Florenstein. So I got on thar trail, found 
this yere Rafferty hed her as his' n — or raether his 
darter — got $200 a week fir her an' gave her nuthing, 
so I lit on him yere to-day, drapped on him foul, and 
ther war wolf meat in the air. But he crawled, an' 
now I'm going ter send him ter prison. I think he 
can do more good breakin' stuns than performing on 
cannons — eh? " 

The crowd — it was a crowd by the time he had 
finished — gave the old man three rousing cheers and 
he escaped from them, hastening to Nannie's room to 

find her wonderfully improved and able to sit up. 

* * * * ***** 

The circus left Shadowville without " Miss Nannie 
Florenstein," and to-day she has returned from a 
village church a blooming bride, " Frank Grace, the 
celebrated bareback rider," being her happy husband. 

Old Ned occupies a seat in their carriage. 

" Uncle, you have made me a happy woman and 
Frank a happy man." 

" Yas, leetle un, I serpose so. It is better than 
bar'-back riding, ain't it? " 

" Yes, uncle. But how can I thank you for all the 
wealth you have showered on me, and for the home 
you have bought us? " again asked Nan, as she kissed 
his happy face. 



562 A ROMANCE OF THE RING. 

"Wall, leetle un, I don't kinder want eny thanks, 
only plese don't — I mean ef yer hev eny children, 
leetle un, don't trust 'em ter eny widders ter sell 'em 
out ter sirkus people fur bar'-back ridin'." 

" You may be certain of that, Uncle Struthers," 
answered Frank, as he kissed his bride. 

" Wall, I hope so. Euyhow, if yer do, see they 
doesn't fall from thar horse's back into a rich uncle's 
pocket — eh, you little pet!" And the carriage 
stopped in front of their new home, happy, bright and 
cheerful. 



CHAPTER XLH. 



LEAPING AND TUMBLING. 



One of the great features of all travelling tent-shows 
and, indeed, in the long years a very prominent fea- 
ture of the legitimate show when juggling, tumbling 
and things of that kind were either interspersed 
between the acts of a tragedy, or filled the intermission 
between the tragedy and farce, was the acrobatic art- 
ist, the athlete, the gymnast, or whatever else you may 
feel like calling him. At the beginning of this cen- 
tury there were several renowned acrobats, and the 
number has increased to such an extent — and the gen- 
eral desire for exhibitions of physical skill — that acro- 
batics have taken possession of many fields. The song 
and dance man aims to introduce as much as possible of 
it into his act or sketch, and even the equestrian and 
equestrienne attempts and succeeds in combining per- 
ilous somersaulting with skilful riding, and the nearer 
the performer goes towards breaking his neck the 
better the people seem to like it. 

The athlete who displayed his prowess or skill in 
the arenas of ancient Rome or Athens was a much 
more important personage than the circus performer 
of to-day. It was the passionate love of manly sports 
which produced the matchless Greek form, the acme 
of physical perfection. The successful athlete, acro- 
bat, or charioteer of two thousand years ago was a pop- 
ular hero, and his triumphs, loves, and career were 
immortalized in poetry and song. A successful ath- 

(563) 



564 LEAPING AND TUMBLING. 

lete was then of more importance than the congress- 
man of to-day. And yet the modern athlete, while 
occupying a much lower social scale than the ancient 
practitioner, is just as strong, and the acrobat of 
to-day is even more skilful than his classic predeces- 
sor. The circus performer thinks nothing of execut- 
ing feats which no later than a century ago were 
deemed impossible. 

Nearly every man and boy who appears in the circus 
arena now-a-days is counted a member of the corps 
that does both grand and lofty tumbling. In small 
shows the corps of leapers and tumblers is increased 
by the addition of several dummies who can do little 
more than turn a hand-spring or a forward somersault 
either on the sawdust or from the spring-board. Many 
of the best acrobats have begun their studies in the 
open streets by walking on their hands or hammering 
their heels against the bare bricks in somersaults or 
hand-springs ; others have been educated in the ring 
following their fathers and sometimes grandfathers 
into the arenic profession. From the ranks of these 
two classes some of the best acrobats and athletes have 
sprung. I can recall several very good leapers and 
tumblers, whose earliest efforts were witnessed and 
wondered at in some vacant lot or friendly stable 
yard — where spring-boards were improvised and feats 
as dangerous as " revolving twice in the air without 
alighting on their feet" — as the ring master usually 
announces this act, in his most grandiloquent style — 
were attempted at the peril of young and frail necks. 
So too with many horizontal bar and trapeze perform- 
ers. But to come back to the leapers and tumblers. 
The band gives a nourish and in they troop for the 
" ground act." They form in a row, and bow to the 
audience and then away each one whirls in a hand- 



LEAPING AND TUMBLING. 



565 



spring and front somersault. Then they retire and 
singly, the men begin to tumble backward and forward 
across and about the ring, heads and feet are kept in 
a whirl until the final effort is reached, when the clown, 
who is frequently as good an artist in the business as 




the rest of his tumbling confreres, chases the swiftest 
of the number around the ring, the clown winding him 
up while the latter rolls like a wheel, in back hand- 
springs along the inner edge of the ring. A short in- 



566 LEAPING AND TUMBLING. 

terval, and the leapers come in, — the same men as 
those who have done the tumbling, — bow, and retire to 
follow each other rapidly down an inclined plane, bound 
from the spring-board, and after a forward somersault 
land safely and gracefully in the soft mattress beyond. 
One, two, three, four, and five horses are brought in 
and placed in front of the spring-board while the mat- 
tress is drawn farther away. As the number of horses 
increases and the peril and distance grow greater, the 
number of leapers decrease till at last three appear, or 
perhaps more horses are added to the equine line, the 
mattress is placed at the farther end of the ring and 
the ring-master — sometimes it is a lecturer like Harry 
Evarts, the " little Grant orator," of Coup's show for 
the past and present season — mounts a pedestal near 
the entrance, and with stentorian voice remarks : 
" Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Batchellor, the champion 
leaper of the world, will now throw a double somer- 
sault over nineteen horses [sometimes fewer elephants 
are employed] — that is to say, the gentleman will re- 
volve twice in the air before alighting on his feet on 
the mattress — a feat that no other performer in this 
or any other 4 country can accomplish. Ladies and 
gentlemen, Mr. Balchellor," and Mr. Batchellor, who 
is an excellent leaper, and shares the championship 
with Frank Gardner, formerly of Cole's show, but 
now with Barnum, makes the leap in a clever and 
comparatively easy manner. 

This difficult feat, never executed, it is asserted, till 
within the past one hundred years, can now be wit- 
nessed at almost every first-class circus performance in 
this country — but not always for the same distance 
attained by Messrs. Batchellor and Gardner. Forty 
years ago the British performer who could throw a 
double somersault was looked on as a wonder. The 



LEAPING AND TUMBLING. 567 

writer, some thirty-three years ago, saw.Tomkinson, a 
famous British clown and acrobat, execute this feat 
in Franconi' s circus, then stationed for the season at 
Edinburg, Scotland. It was the same Franconi who 
afterward managed the hippodrome in New York in 
1863-4, and the company was booked as first-class in 
every respect. The double somersault was performed 
by Tomkinson at his benefit, and the announcement of 
the then great feat packed the wooden building to suf- 
focation. When the ring-master had made the prelim- 
inary speech, and Tomkinson retired up the steep 
incline which termimated in the spring-board, every 
heart stood still. A quick, impetuous rush down the 
board, a bound high in the air, a slow revolution and the 
gymnast descended nearly to the ground. It seemed 
impossible to do it, but in the last six feet the curled 
up body turned once more, and Tomkinson alighted 
on the bis;, soft mattress on his feet, but sta^o-erino;. 

O' 7 CO o 

He was prevented from falling by the ring-master, and 
as he turned to go inside, Franconi, the enthusiastic 
French manager, patted him warmly on the back, amid 
the applause of the vast audience. It was a rare feat 
in those days. Tomkinson and the few other British 
double somersault performers did it only at infrequent 
intervals. 

In this country Costella, a noted circus leaper, made 
it more difficult by clearing a number of horses at the 
same time. But soon a number of acrobats were able 
to follow his example, and even excel him in height 
and distance. Nowadays a circus acrobat who cannot 
do a double somersault is not considered anything but 
an ordinary preformer unless he can do other sensa- 
tional and original feats. Last year Barnum had a 
corps of acrobats, of whom seven preformed double 
somersaults every night during the season. John Rob- 



568 LEAPING AND TUMBLING. 

inson has five men who can do it. The most surprising 
and unexcelled feat of double somersault throwing was 
that of the Garnella Brothers, who performed it in 
variety halls and circuses a few years ago. Standing 
on his brother's shoulders the younger Garnella sprang 
up and revolved twice, landing again on the shoulders. 
When it is considered that the double somersault by 
other performers is accomplished by a short spurt, a 
spring-board, and no restriction as to the spot ot alight- 
ing, the feat of young Garnella must be classed among 
the unprecedented marvels of the acrobatic art. 

The triple somersault is a dream of every young and 
ambitious acrobat. It requires phenominal dexterity 
of body, and is known to be so dangerous that few 
have even attempted it. Fame and fortune awaits any 
performer who can do it, say twenty times in one 
tenting season. Were it not that circus managers 
know that the feat, or even the attempt, if repeated a 
limited number of times, will certainly result in a 
broken neck, they could well afford to pay the performer 
$10,000 to $20,000 for a season ; and were it not, 
too, a proven fact, it would seem that the laws of 
gravitation and the limitations of physical dexterity 
forbade the turning of a triple somersault except by 
accident. In turning a double somersault off a spring- 
board, it is necessary to make a leap at an angle of 
about thirty degrees to obtain the necessary " ballast" 
or impetus to turn twice. If an almost perpendicular 
leap is made, the leaper would not have leverage 
enough to turn. In order to make the double somer- 
sault the performer has to leap from the springboard 
with all his might to get the proper angle as well as to 
attain a sufficient height, so that he may have time to 
turn twice over before alighting. The same conditions 
govern the triple somersault, only it is necessary to go 
about one-third higher into the air. 



LEAPING AND TUMBLING. 569 

An American named Turner accomplished a triple 
somersault once in this country and again in England. 
He tried it a third time and broke his neck. It is 
claimed that with this exception and the exception of 
Bob Stickney, of John Robinson's show, and Sam Bern- 
hardt, an ex-leaper, no acrobat has been successful. 
The skeptic may say triple somersaults may be accom- 
plished by the aid of higher and more powerful spring- 
boards than those in use, but that would merely change 
the angle, and the result would be the same. Of 
course the board could be placed high enough, but the 
specific gravity of the performer's body would be in- 
creased while descending. The height is not the only 
trouble. If it was only height, such men as Stickney, 
Batchellor, Gardner and one or two others, by improved 
appliances and practice would overcome that diffi- 
culty. But after the double somersault is accomplished 
and the performer is ready to turn again, he "loses 
his catch" or the control of his body, and is governed 
in his descent by gravitation alone. His head being 
heavier than his feet, he is very apt to light on it first 
and break his neck. 

The first recorded attempt to throw a triple somer- 
sault in this country was made by a performer in Van 
Amburgh's circus at Mobile, Alabama, in 1842. He 
broke his neck. Another attempt was made in London, 
England, in 1846. It was made in Astley's amphi- 
theatre, then leased to Howe & Cushi ng, the American 
managers. In this company was M. J. Lipman, a fine 
vaulter, Levi J. North, now in Brooklyn, New York, a 
famous equestrian ; the late William O. Dale, a native 
of Cincinnati, who died here, blind and broken down, 
and who was an acrobat and equestrian of great 
reputation, and Wm. J. Hobbes, a fine leaper. It 
was previously announced that Hobbes would attempt 



570 LEAPING AND TUMBLING. 

a triple somersault, and the house was jammed. He 
tried it, and was instantly killed. The next to try it 
was John Amor, who was born under the roof of Dan 
Rice's father's domicile, near Girard, Pennsylvania. 
Amor travelled for years in this country with Dan Rice's 
circus, and in that day was considered the greatest 
gymnast in America, if not in the world. He is said 
to be the first performer in America to turn a double 
somersault over four horses. In 1859 he went to 
England and travelled with a circus all through the 
united kingdom. In the same year he attempted to 
turn a triple somersault at the Isle of Wight, but 
landed on his forehead and broke his neck. 

Billy Dutton, it is said, performed the great feat 
while a member of Lake's circus, at Elkhorn, Illinois, 
in 1860, at a rehearsal, in the presence of John Law- 
ton, the famous clown, now with Robinson's circus. 
Dutton was ambitious to have it to say he did it, and 
did not make the attempt with the intention of repeat- 
ing it. He made the leap from a high spring-board. 
Dutton said then he would not try it again, and that 
his lighting upon his feet was an accident, as he could 
not control his body after turning the second time. 
Frank Starks, who was well known in Cincinnati, un- 
dertook the feat at the fair grounds in Indianapolis in 
1870, for a wager of $100. In the first attempt he 
turned three times, but alighted in a sitting posture. 
Every one was satisfied with the result, and the money 
was tendered him. He proudly' refused it, saying he 
would repeat it, and light upon his feet before he felt 
sufficiently justified in taking the $100. He did re- 
peat it j but struck on his head, dislocating his neck, 
and death resulted a few hours afterward. Bob Stick- 
ney accomplished the great feat when fourteen years of 
age, while practising in a gymnasium on Fourteenth 



LEAPING AND TUMBLING. 571 

Street, New York. William Stein, an attache of 
Robinson's circus, was one of the persons who held 
the blanket for him to alight upon. Stiekney says he 
believes he could do it again, but would not attempt it 
for less than $10,000, being fully convinced that the 
chances for his final exit from the arena would be good 
on that occasion. Sam Bernhardt, a former leaper, 
now a saloon-keeper at Columbus, when with the 
Cooper & Bailey Circus at Toledo, in 1870, not being 
satisfied with turning double somersaults, tried to add 
another revolution. He turned twice and a half, 
alighting on the broad of his back, and was disabled 
for a short period. The fact that a triple somersault 
was ever accomplished before a circus audience, after 
due announcement, and under the same conditions as 
double somersaults are performed — namely, landing 
on a mattress — may be seriously doubted. The best 
informed circus men say that it cannot be done with 
anything even like comparative safety except in the 
sheets, a blanket held by a number of men being used 
to catch the alighting performer. It is claimed, also, 
that it has never been accomplished except in that 
wav. 



CHAPTER XLIII. 



AN ADVENTURE WITH GIANTS. 

I was in the office of the old Evening Post, at St. 
Louis one afternoon in 1879, when it was invaded by 
Capt. M. V. Bates and wife, the tallest married couple 
in the world. They were travelling with Cole's cir- 
cus, and by invitation of the managing editor, who 
wanted them interviewed, they visited the newspaper 
office. A very small reporter had been assigned to do 
the talking, and he waited patiently around the estab- 
lishment until a carriage drove up to the door and a 
shout went up, " Here they come," at the sound of 
which the interviewer hurriedly made for the waste- 
basket which was under the table. Whether the giant 
and giantess saw the diminutive reporter or not they 
kept on coming in, and the scribe saw no other way 
out of it than to dive into the ample recesses of the 
basket, and nestle upon a bed of school-girl poetry, 
statesmen's essays, and applications from last year's 
and the coming year's college graduates, for manag- 
ing editorship. There is a barbaric sesquepedalianism 
(which is a good long word to ring into a chapter about 
six-storied people) and a prevailing atmosphere of 
suffocation in such a waste-basket ; nevertheless, the 
tiny reporter crouched closer as the Brobdignaggian 
people approached with a rabble that noised their heels 
upon the floor, their tongues against the roofs of their 
mouths, and that made things look and sound as if all 
the quarreling powers of Europe had set their com- 
(572) 



AN ADVENTURE WITH GIANTS. 573 

bined forces down in the Evening Post office for the 
special purpose of driving the senses of its whole staff 
out through the top of the building. But all this was 
seraphic bliss compared with the awful moment when 
the giant captain deliberately sat down on the table 
just over the waste-basket. It would take a million 
horse-power jackscrew, I should think, to raise the fal- 
len hopes of the reporter just then. A man stands some 
chance if a custom-house falls on him hurriedly, but 
chance crushed to earth never rises again, when a giant 
like this is threatening to make any easy-chair out of him. 
I suppose nearly everybody has heard the funny story 
about the fat woman and the living skeleton, in a New 
York museum, who fell in love with each other. They 
got along very nicely for a while, and were, as affec- 
tionate as if the two had pooled their issues of flesh, 
blood, and bone, and divided up so that each tipped 
the scale at two hundred and sixty pounds, instead of 
the whale-like spouse tipping the scale at four hundred 
and ninety, while the skeleton husband did not need 
any more than a thirty-pound section of %he beam to 
balance his weight. They were as happy as the sweet- 
est of the singing birds until one day the husband al- 
lowed his heart to stray off to the Circassian girl, who 
had been orginally born in Ireland, but had her hair 
curled for a short side-show engagement. Mr. Skele- 
ton was making the weightiest kind of love to the fair 
Circassian for probably a month before the fat woman 
was made aware of the fact. Then the monster that 
is usually represented as green-eyed, took possession 
of her. She kept a careful vigil of all " Skin-and- 
bones' " doings, as she called him, until one day she 
found him during the noon hour, with his lean arms 
around the Circassian girl's neck, and his thin lips 
glued to her pouting labials of cherry-red. It is im- 



574: AN ADVENTURE WITH GIANTS. 

possible to describe the terrible manner in which she 
swooped down upon Mr. Skeleton. It was enough to 
say that she covered space with alarming rapidity, and 
taking her thirty-pound husband by the back of the neck, 
shook an Irish jig out of his rattling bones, after which 
she threw him on the floor and deliberately sat upon him. 
The vivacious showman who told this story said a mill- 
stone could not have made a nicer sheet of wall-paper 
out of the living skeleton, had one fallen on him, and 
only for the buttons on his vest he could have been 
pushed through the crack under the door, after the fat 
woman got through with him. But to come back to 
Capt. Bates, the table upon which he had seated him- 
self groaned, and the little reporter moaned. The 
fleeting seconds were magnified into centuries, and the 
man in the waste-basket afterwards told me that he 
felt himself shrinking into something like a homoeo- 
pathic pill. The table, however, appeared to stand the 
pressure a great deal better than the person under it, 
and it was sometime before the latter came to recon- 
cile himself to the safety of his situation. When he 
did so he peeped out. 

The sight that met his gaze was a curious one. 
There was the great towering giantess, of pleasing 
features and with nothing of a " fee-fo-fum " air about 
her, quietly seated in the editor's chair, taking in the 
situation as if she had been accustomed to the thing 
since Adam's father was bald-headed. And there 
were the editors and news-hunters gazing on admir- 
ingly, with one or two of them particularly awe-stricken 
and wild-eyed. But the background was the thing. 
It was a circus in itself. At the doors and windows, 
upon tables and chairs, and perched further up on the 
top of an inoffensive and weak partition, as high as the 
giant himself, was a ghastly array of gaping mouths and 



AN ADVENTURE WITH GIANTS. 575 

bursting eyes in a setting of eager and dirty faces, — 
inside and out, high and low, anywhere and every- 
where around the institution within seeing distance 
were newsboys and boot-blacks till one couldn't rest ; 
with a dim and distant horizon of more respectable 
visitors who had been tempted in by the unusual scene 
and noise. After the usual courtesies had been inter- 
changed, the editor remarked : — 

" I had a young fellow assigned to interview you, 
Captain, but I don't know where he is just now." 

" Perhaps he's gone to git an extension ladder," 
suggested a forward newsboy. 

" No, Skinny, " said another ; " he told me he was 
going to get old Stout's balloon." 

At this moment there was a commotion under the 
table. The giant's foot had swung back and collided 
with the waste-basket. To say it was a big foot would 
be like calling the pyramid of Cheops a brick-bat or 
the Colossus of Rhodes an Italian plaster-cast. They 
say Chicago girls have big feet ; I don't know this to 
be a fact, but if they have anything like the pedal 
spread of Captain Bates they are entitled to the credit 
generally given them of greatness in this way. At any 
rate the collision between the foot and the basket 
caused the recondite reporter to disclose his where- 
abouts. The managing editor qualified his conduct as 
unbecoming a newspaper-man, and the giant himself 
gently requested the scribe to come forward. 

"You won't make a watch-charm out of me?" 
queried the reporter, apprehensively. 

" No, no," the giant answered, in an assuring tone. 

" Nor a scarf-pin? " 

The giant said he wouldn't. 

This allayed the reporter's fears, and he came for- 
ward from the atmosphere of " respectfully declined " 



576 AN ADVENTURE WITH GIANTS. 

literature in which he had been. Capt. Bates's greet- 
ing was most kind, and so was that of his wife. The 
reporter saw at once there had been no necessity for 
his previous timidity, and managing to get within a 
couple of yards of the giant's ear, he excused his 
awkward and silly actions. A pleasant chat followed, 
in which the giant and giantess gave brief outlines 
of their personal history. 

Capt. Bates is now (1879) thirty-five years of age, 
stands seven feet eleven and one-rhalf inches in height, 
and weighs about four hundred and eighty pounds . He 
is well put together, handsome in features, genial in 
speech, and has the reputation of being a sharp, 
shrewd man of the world. Mrs. Bates is thirty-two 
years old, of the same height as her husband, although 
she really seems to be taller, and turns the scales at 
about four hundred and twenty pounds. She is thin- 
ner in form, but of excellent physique, is handsome, 
and has the same frank and smiling expression on her 
face as that constantly worn by her husband. She 
says she likes the show business, because it brings 
her in contact with so many persons. The Captain, 
though, having been in it about twelve years, and 
accumulated considerable means, does not care much 
about parading his colossal proportions before the 
public. It has been his desire of late years to live in 
private, quietly on his farm in Ohio, where the couple 
have a house built expressly for them, with doors, win- 
dows, furniture, etc., on a giant scale ; but until this 
year they received so many handsome offers that they 
forsook the sod for the sawdust, and the plow for the 
platform. In 1880, I think it was, a giant child was 
born to this enormous couple. The infant weighed 
twenty-eight pounds at birth. 

After listening patiently to the Captain aud his wife 



AN ADVENTURE WITH GIANTS. 577 

as they spoke of themselves, the little reporter whom 
I have introduced the reader to already, suggested as 
he nearly dislocated his neck in looking up at the lofty 
couple, that it would have been a nice thing to be 
around when they were making love to each other, but 
Mrs. Bates said that was rather a delicate matter to 
call up, and the reporter subsided. I could not help 
thinking, however, that a fellow must feel awful queer 
with four hundred and odd pounds of sweetheart upon 
his knee. Himalayan hugging going on all the time, 
and love-sighs that needed a Jacob's ladder to come 
from the heart-depths playing above his head like 
mountain zephyrs around the Pike's Peak signal ser- 
vice station. And then when a fellow felt his love 
away down in his boots, what an Atlantic cable job it 
must have been to find out exactly where it was ! And 
the old garden gate, how it must have been like the 
gates that brave Samson shouldered with probably a 
little extra bracing to it. And what chewing-gum 
swopping must have gone on, and ice cream eating, 
perhaps a plate as large as a Northland johel at a time, 
and no two spoons in it, either? Oh, but it must have 
been a heavenly thing ! 

"You weren't afraid of her big brother, Captain, 
were you? " friendly interrogated the reporter. 

" Oh, no ; not at all," answered the Captain. 

" If you sat down on him once you could have sold 
him for a bundle of tissue paper, couldn't you? " 

" That is not it, my boy," said the Captain. " She 
didn't have any big brother." 

" Oh, yes, I see." 

Then the discourse turned into other channels, in- 
tended to be of special interest to splacmucks — as 
the Brobdignaggians called ordinary mortals — who 
are contemplating marriage with giantesses. 



578 AN ADVENTURE WITH GIANTS. 

" I suppose Mrs. Bates does not wield an ordinary 
rolling-pin?" the reporter half queried, addressing 
himself to Capt. Bates. 

" No, indeed," the lady herself replied, laughingly. 
" I have one made expressly for my own use, from 
one of the largest of the Yosemite Valley trees." 

"And you lay it on the old man now and then?" 
the reporter asked. 

" I can answer for that," put in the Captain. " She 
sometimes brings it down so heavily on the rear eleva- 
tion of my skull that it feels as if I had run against a 
pile-driver on a drunk or lost my way under the ham- 
mers of a quartz mill." 

Mrs. Bates certainly had the physical strength to 
make a rolling-pin dance a lively jig in any direction, 
and if the weapon is anything at all like what it is here 
represented to be, Thor's celebrated hammer will have 
to go to the hospital as a weak and debilitated concern 
until the gi-ants lay their domestic difficulties aside and 
retire permanently from active service. 

" It must be a gigantic thing when the Captain comes 
home late at night, from the lodge, you know, falls 
through the kitchen window into a pan of dishes, and 
after stumbling up stairs goes to bed with his boots 
on?" the reporter insinuated, as he looked sorrow- 
fully at the giantess. 

" Oh, he never does that," said the lady ; aud after 
a minute she added, " and he'd better not." 

The giantess looked knowingly at the giant who looked 
down at the floor. My thoughts wreathed themselves 
fondly around the Yosemite-tree rolling-pin, and I guess 
Capt. Bates's thoughts were turned in the same direc- 
tion. 

"Nobody ever dares to write billet-doux to Mrs. 
Bates," said the reporter. "I suppose you know 



AN ADVENTURE WITH GIANTS. 579 

circus and theatrical people are subject to that sort of 
thing?" 

"Not anybody that I know of," the Captain an- 
swered. 

"And I suppose if anybody did they wouldn't care 
about having you know it, either? " said the little 
Evening Post man. 

The Captain made no reply, but a mysterious kind 
of look crowded into his eyes, and if anybody around 
that newspaper office had dared to entertain a spark 
of affection for the giantess he could see at once that 
he didn't stand the ghost of a show while the giant 
was around. 

"Now, Captain," the tiny and timid reporter 
remarked, moving to a distance, " I know you 
like travelling, and I have one more question 1 would 
like to ask you. It is about the hotel accommodations. 
Don't you occasionally have to hang your head or feet 
over the ends of the beds you encounter? " 

This question disgusted the Captain and he rose 
from the table indignantly, as did Mrs. Bates from the 
editorial chair, and doubling themselves up as they 
reached the doorway they majestically swept out of 
the newspaper office, and stepping into their carriage 
were driven away. 



CHAPTER XLIV. 



THE " TATTOOED TWINS. 



WANTED — The address of some one who can tattoo with Indian ink on the 
person. A. J. H., No. , th Street. 

This advertisement appeared in a St. Louis Sunday 
morning paper. The number and the street are not 
given for reasons that will at once present themselves to 
every intelligent reader. Now there is sometimes that 
in an advertisement which attracts one like a pretty girl. 
A few lines may furnish a neat little intellectual flirta- 
tion, and very frequently can, like a coy and pretty 
maiden, keep coaxing a fellow along until he is per- 
fectly lost in the maze of an affection that he has 
neither the tact nor the willingness to try to escape 
from. As soon as my eyes lit upon them and the 
words from the capital W in the beginning to the pe- 
riod at the end were taken in, I was irrevocably gone 
on them. Like the immortal J. N., I immediately 
lifted the veil and looked at the suppositious sanctuary 
behind it, and then saw that walking art gallery,, Capt. 
Costentenus — known to thousands of people who saw 
him travelling as the tatooed man — lyiug bound hand 
and foot upon the earth and surrounded by half a dozen 
Chinese Tartars, who were industriously pricking him 
with pointed instruments, which were ever and anon 
dipped into the little basins of blackish-blue liquid. 
The scene changed suddenly into a room at No. — 

th Street, and the Tartars were metamorphosed 

into a single individual of a decidedlv Caucasian aspect, 

(581) 



582 THE TATTOOED TWINS. 

but with features wrought in that iudistinctness which 
very frequently is characteristic of the shapes and 
forms seen ill waking dreams, and the Greek Captain 
was replaced by an equally Caucasian subject, who was 
quietly undergoing the operations of having his breast 
tattooed in the most lavish and picturesque manner that 
the artist knew how. This idea fastened itself in my 
mind to such an extraordinary extent that merely for 
the purpose of gratifying a certain instinctive curi- 
osity, as well as to see if my suppositions were cor- 
rect, I called at the house indicated next afternoon. 

It was a large three-story boarding-house in a very 
quiet part of the city, and situated romantically 
enough to lend the coloring of fact to the picture I 
had previously conjured up of the surroundings of the 
gentleman who wanted to be tattooed. 

A young girl opened the door, who knew nothing of 
the person who owned the initials that appeared in the 
advertisement. I explained that this was the number 
and street — it was certainly the right house — and 
couldn't she recollect some name that began with an 
H. No, she could not. She did not think there was 
any gentleman boarding in the house whose name be- 
gan with an H, and then she recollected that there 
had come to the house a few days before a man whose 
name she did not know. She would call her mother. 
"Ma! oh, ma!" rang down through the hallway, 
and around behind the staircase, and down into the 
dining-room? and up came the assuring response, 
" I'll be there in a minute." Enter the landlady with 
a wet towel on her head, and wiping her fingers on the 
corner of her apron. In answer to the daughter's query 
as to what the " new gentleman's " name was, she re- 
plied, as if she had known him since the corner-stone 
of Cheops was laid, that he was Mr. Henneberry. 



THE TATTOOED TWINS. 583 

Was he in? No, not just then, but he would be back 
in time for dinner, which would bespread in about half 
an hour. Somewhat disappointed I replied that I 
would take a walk around and call at the end of the 
half hour, and was about to leave the door when a 
voice was heard on the upper landing, and the words 
61 Hold on I " shouted in a very peremptory manner 
brought me to a halt. It was Mr. Henneberry, as I 
soon ascertained, when a tall, stout, well-proportioned 
gentleman, of handsome features and the prettiest 
black hair my eyes ever gazed upon, came down, in- 
troduced himself, and invited me in. The object of 
the visit was explained in a few words. 

" Well," said Mr. Henneberry, " I've been just 
talking to a gentleman up in my room, an old sailor, 
who was crippled some years ago, by falling from the 
spar of a South American sailer, so he says, and who 
appears to be pretty expert. I rather like the man, 
and I think he will about suit me. He needs money, 
what you don't appear to do, and I think he is just the 
very man for what I want. So you see, I think you're 
a little late." 

I expressed my regret at not having seen the adver- 
tisement earlier. 

"You see," continued Mr. Henneberry, "I want 
somebody who will stay in the house here, and be 
available at all times during the day. It's a pretty 
long job — " and here he checked himself. ' "No, I 
don't mean a long job, because there ain't much of it, 
but what there is has got to be done neat and right up 
to the handle. What sort of work can you do? " 

I bared my arm and exhibited a large death-head 
and cross-bones, an American eagle, and a bust of 
George Washington, which I had tattooed into me, 
when young and fond and foolish, by a Greek sailor I 
met in Milwaukee. 



584 THE TATTOOED TWINS. 

" That's pretty good," sard Hennebeny. " Where 
did you learn the business — if I might call it a busi- 
ness?" 

Here I explained that an old sail-maker had taught 
me the art and that, having acquired the modus oper- 
andi of pricking the color into the flesh, I was perfectly 
at home in the business, as I was also an experienced 
sketcher. 

Further talk followed, in which Mr. Hennebeny 
spoke of tattooing generally, but made no allusion to 
the person to be tattooed nor the extent of the work to 
be done. At last, as he rose from his chair, as a gentle 
reminder that he had said about all he wanted to say, 
remarked that I might call again, as he had yet made 
no definite arrangement with the man up-stairs and 
probably would need two. 

I went off chagrined, and wished that the old salt 
with the broken leg, who had gotten in ahead of me 
had broken his neck when he fell from the spar of that 
South American sailer. I left the door whistling, "We 
Parted by the River Side." 

A saunter into a shady spot at a safe distance from 
the house, and a mind made up to await the outcoming 
of the successful rival, were the results of a sudden 
inspiration. An hour passed, a half more, three 
quarters, and it was just about an even couple of hours 
when out from the door of No. — , — th Street, limped 
a middle-a^ed , bent man, and he came directlv towards 
me. He passed me by, for about half a block, when I 
caught up, and introduced the opening wedge of con- 
versation by remarking that the weather was a little 
cooler than folks around there had been used to for the 
past month or so. 

" Well, yes," was the reply, " but I don't mind it 
so much. You see I've hove to in hotter ports than 
this' 11 ever be. That sunstroke period was Injun 



THE TATTOOED TWINS. 585 

summer compared with the brimstun climate I've 
pulled through. I've been along the African coast 
when it was hot enough to make a mill-stun sweat. If 
they could have just shipped that weather North it 
would thaw the North Pole into hot water inside of fif- 
teen minutes." 

And then the crippled sailor told of other experi- 
ences in other warm climates, and we talked on in 
an easy, friendly way for three or four blocks, when 
my companion remarked that he was going to take the 
c\rs. I said I was going to do the same, and as soon 
as we were seated on the shady side of the conveyance 
I remarked in a careless, off-hand way : — 

" You got ahead of me in that job down at Henne- 
berry's, old man." 

He opened his eyes, looked at me half suspiciously, 
and said: "Then you're the young man the gentle- 
man was talking about to me. You went to see him, 
this afternoon?" 

An affirmative was the answer. 

" Well, you needn't be so put out. He ain't en- 
gaged nobody yet. At least he ain't closed with me. 
You see, he's a bit scary. Didn't he tell you what he 
wanted ? ' ' 

" Yes. At least, he left me to infer that he wanted 
either himself or somebody else tattooed." 

"All over?" 

" I thought that was what he meant." 

" Well, blast his jib ! He made me make all sorts 
o' promises not to open my port-hole about it." 

" It is a very funny project, isn't it? " asked the re- 
porter. 

"Oh, no, not at all. I've been at it afore. I 
worked at a man up in Canada for about three months 
and got him nigh half done, when he died." 



586 THE TATTOOED TWINS. 

" It's a pretty dangerous operation, this tattooing? " 
was the next gentle insinuation. 

"Yes, sometimes. But Henneberry can stand it. 
He looks as if he had the constitution and he appears 
to be reckless of the consequences. He wants to be a 
show-fellow. He's struck on it, just the same as that 
Canada chap who kicked. He's got an idea that 
there's money in it, and he's always talkin' about that 
Grecian chap as is with the circuses, you know." 

" How long will it take to do the job? " 

"Well, that I don't exactly know. He talks of 
havin' two of us at it. Maybe you're the other felrow, 
and he's in a stormy hurry about havin' it finished up, 
and wants a fellow to stay in the house^ with him all 
the time so that he can take his tattooing just when he 
feels like it. Are you good in drawin' dragoons, flyin' 
fish, elephants, boey constrictors and sich, young 
man?" 

I replied that I was an adept in delineating animals 
of the sort named. 

"Then I guess he'll want you. I used to be a 
pretty good drawer myself afore I fell from that South 
American, but my hand shakes no little now ; but you 
just lay the lines, and if I don't stick 'em in as clean 
as a copper plate, my name ain't Jack Hogan." 

" What will he pay for the job ? " 

"Well, I asked $600 calc'latin' six months would 
do it, but he brought me down to $450 and will pay 
my board and lodgin'. That ain't bad." 

The reporter coincided with Jack Hogan that it 
appeared to be a pretty good thing. 

"And you don't git your money down either. He 
wants to be fixed up from the soles of his feet to near his 
shirt collar and wristbands, in the house where he is 
now, and then he's gain' off to some quiet spot and 



THE TATTOOED TWINS. 587 

have his face and hands and even his ears and the top 
of his head, for he's partly bald, done up in some place 
in the country, or may be out in some of the Pacific 
islands, and if it's a bargain between us I'll have to go 
with him." 

" What catches me," said I, as we got up to leave 
the car, " is what Henneberry will do with himself when 
the finishing touches are all put on him." 

" I can't say, but I s'pose he'll go off to the Sand- 
wich Islands, marry a nigger squaw, or something of 
that sort, and come back with a cock-and-bull story 
about being captured by savages, and then swing 
'round the circle with some circus or other. He's got 
the money to push the thing through, and I believe he 
can stand it. Maybe he'll travel with old Cos'tenus, 
and they'll call themselves the tattooed twins." 

And the old fellow laughed heartily as he got down 
carefully from the platform of the car, and limped 
away towards the river — perhaps down to the Bethel 
Home on the levee. 

The foregoing story may be regarded as quite a val- 
uable clue when associated with a piece of information 
furnished by an Albany, New York, journal, whose re- 
porter says the work on Capt. Costentenus's body pales 
when compared with that shown by a young man who 
stopped over in Albany one evening last summer on 
his way from Saratoga to his home in Syracuse. His 
name is Henry Frumell, and he is but twenty-three 
years of age. Although so young, he has, according 
to his own story, seen considerable of life. In 1876 
he ran away from home, shipped on a merchant vessel 
which was trading among the Washington Islands in 
South Pacific. While there he underwent the tattoo- 
ing process, which he described as the most painful 
torture ever endured. 



588 THE TATTOOED TWINS. 

" How was it done, and by whom? " he was asked 
by a reporter. 

" By the natives, and with six needles fastened to a 
stick. Do you see them (showing the backs of his 
hands and wrists)? There is a lady's face on one and 
a man's on the other. Vermilion red and indigo blue 
were used, being pricked in with the needles. Now you 
see that the work is executed just as neatly and per- 
fectly as it could possibly be on the human skin. 
Well, it took weeks before the design was finished, 
and it had to be pricked over a number of times." 

" It must have been painful." 

" It was. But then I had no choice but to sub- 
mit." 

"Why, were you compelled to undergo the tattoo- 
ing?" 

" Hardly that, but it was wiser to do so." 

* ' How could natives execute the work so per- 
fectly?" 

" They used designs given them by a sailor named 
John Wells, who belonged to an English vessel. 
Those on my wrist are not so perfect as on other por- 
tions of my body." 

" Did they tattoo you all over? " 

"All except a small portion of the left leg above the 
ankle." 

The designs so ineffaceably worked into Frumeli's 
skin are numerous and beautiful, and some of them so 
appropriate to the young man's nationality that it is 
difficult to imagine how a South Pacific savage, even 
with an English sailor for an advisor, should have se- 
lected such fitting pictures. On his back, extending 
from shoulder to shoulder, and from the nape of the 
neck downward was a spirited illustration of two ships 
in action. Below it is a snake with protruding fangs 



THE TATTOOED TWINS. 589 

and a scroll with Paul Jones's motto, " Don't tread on 
me." On his breast is the national coat of arms 
worked on the breast of an American eagle with 
pinions outspread, and the national colors in its beak. 
This covers the entire breast from armpit to armpit, 
and from the throat downward. Both arms are liter- 
ally covered with designs of beasts, birds, and flowers. 
The lower limbs are also ornamented, one with the 
" Crucifixion of Christ " and the other with the sham- 
rock, harp of Erin, and other designs. Each knee- 
cap looks like a full-blown rose, with its vivid coloring 
and almost perfect imitation of that flower. The re- 
mainder of his body is similarly decorated, over five 
months being occupied in the process, and consider- 
able more time being occupied in healing. His skin 
has the feeling of the finest velvet, and he says that he 
does not experience any evil effects from the immense 
quantity of poisonous dye injected into the cuticle. 
He has tried to eradicate the designs on his hands by 
burning, but without avail. 



CHAPTER XLV. 



IN THE MENAGERIE. 



Before entering the menagerie let us look at the 
huge cannon standing here outside the dressing-tent. 
It looks like a ponderous affair, but investigation shows 
that it is made of wood. There is a latitudinal slit 
at the lower end and a lever. It requires an effort to 
push the lever back which indicates that there is a 
pretty strong spring in the bottom of the cannon. 
This is the piece of ordnance that Zazel is shot out of 
into a net some distance away. She lies on her back in 
the cannon, which is tilted to an angle of about forty- 
five degrees, assumes a rigid position, and at the word 
fire the lever is pulled back, the spring released, a 
pistol is fired, and while Zazel is coming through the 
air a little cloud of smoke rolls from the cannon's 
mouth and is swept away almost before she lands on 
her back in the net. Sig. Farini says Zazel is his 
daughter. Barnum says that when he was in London 
where Zazel was doing the cannon act, creating a 
great furore, the pretty little French girl en me to him 
crying and asked to be taken away. She was only 
getting about six dollars a week for the perilous work 
she was doing and Farini was drawing a large salary 
out of which she got this pittance. 

Sig. Farini also owns the Zulus that have appeared 
here. As their manager he is well paid for them, and 
as the Zulus sleep in the menagerie tent and have but 
few wants and he gives them about a dollar a day — 

(590) 



IN THE MENAGERIE. 591 

so Barnum says — Cetawayo's subjects are a profitable 
investment for him. Zulu Charley on exhibition in 
New York gets the magnificent sum of one dollar a day 
for doing his native war-dance and standing fire under 
the numerous eyes that are leveled at him daily. 
There is a bit of romance about this black warrior. 
Among the crowds who thronged to see the antics of 
the Zulus at Bunnell's Dime Museum, New York City, 
last winter, was an Italian girl named Anita G. Corsini, 
eighteen years old, a music teacher by occupation, and 
the daughter of a Mr. Corsini who is in business in 
New York. Zulu Charley won her admiration and 
love, and she spent many quarters from her hard-earned 
savings to see the dusky object of her affections. 
Charlie did not repel her affections and they swore to 
be true to each other. Mr. Corsini, however, did not 
regard with favor the prospect of a marriage between 
his daughter and a negro, and did everything in his 
power to dissuade her from carrying out her inten- 
tion. Last week, however, the couple eloped, but 
while on their way to a minister's house they were ar- 
rested at the instance of Anita's father. 

When the case came up on the following morning in 
the Jefferson Market court the father wanted to have 
the girl sent to Blackwell's Island, but upou her 
promise to obey him and leave the Zulu he changed 
.his mind and took her home. But she again met 
Charley and, accompanied by another Zulu named 
Usikali, and Charles Eichards, a white man, they went 
to the residence of the Rev. R. O. Page, Brooklyn, 
and asked to be married. The minister consented, 
but he seems to have made a mistake, addressing 
all the questions to Usikali instead of to Charley, 
and then pronounced them man and wife. On learn- 
ing his mistake, however, he performed another 



592 IN THE MENAGERIE. 

ceremony between the right parties. The newly mar- 
ried couple then went to the museum, where the 
bridegroom took part in the usual Zulu war-dance. 

The tattooed Greek Costentenus with his picture- 
covered flesh is always an object of admiration to the 
ladies. He says he was tattooed into his present 
shape by Chinese Tartars and tells a harrowing story 
of his sufferings. 

The torturing doesn't seem to have impaired his 
health or bothered his appetite any. He is a magnifi- 
cent looking man physically and in his unstripped con- 
dition is a figure that the eye of an artist would de- 
light to dwell upon. His only rival is a lady who 
is now on exhibition in England and whose breast 
and upper and lower limbs are covered with tattoo- 
ing. I do not know her history, but she probably 
submitted to the process to make money out of 
it. Dr. Lacassagne, a French physician, has pub- 
lished a book on the habit of tattooing as 
practised in the French army. There are profes- 
sional tattooers in Paris and Lyons who charge half a 
franc for each design. Generally the tattooer has car- 
toons on paper and reproduces these on the skin by a 
mechanical process. Large designs cost a good deal ; 
a big representation of an Indian holding up the flag 
of the United States costs the decorated person fif- 
teen francs. China ink is the coloring substance pre- 
ferred, touched up with vermilion. Dr. Lacassagne 
has collected one thousand three hundred and thirty- 
three designs, tattooed on three hundred and seventy- 
eifidit members of the Second African Battalion or on men 
under arrest in military prisons. Many were tattooed 
on every part of the body except the inner side of the 
thighs. Patriotic and religious designs and inscrip- 
tions amounted to ninety-one. There were two hun- 



IN THE MENAGERIE. 593 

drod and eighty amorous and erotic devices and three 
hundred and forty- four works of pure fantasy, such 
as ladies driving in a carriage, the horses plunging and 
servants rushing to their heads. The great efforts of 
art are reserved for the surfaces of the breast and 
buck. The subjects of many of the drawings are best 
left undescribed, the imagination of a dissipated sol- 
dier being quite savage in its purity. Among pa- 
triotic and religious emblems are cited two devils, nine 
theological virtues, six crucifixes, two sisters of char- 
ity, three heads of Prussians, not flattered, and five 
portraits of ideal girls of Alsace, with no fewer than 
thirty-four busts of the republic. Among animals the 
lion and the serpent are the favorite totems. Among 
flowers the pansy is generally preferred. The aesthetic 
classes will be grieved to hear that not a single lily ap- 
pears, and there was only one daisy. Among myth- 
ological subjects the sirens are the greatest favorites ; 
next comes Bacchus with his pards, Venus, Apollo and 
Cupid. 

Gen. Tom Thumb and his agreeable little wife are 
once more swinging around the sawdust circle with 
their old friend Barnum. Gen. Thumb is the most 
successful dwarf the world has ever seen. He is rich 
and as happy as if he and his wife were as tall as 
Captain and Mrs. Bates, the giant and giantess whose 
immense forms loom up above the crowds that throng 
the menagerie tent. I have written elsewhere about 
captain and his wife. 

''Tummy T'um is ze worst bluff at pokair I ever 
saw," said Campanini one day, in a confidential mood ; 
" I ride wiz heem in sefenty-seex from Pittsburg to 
Veeling, and he loose me elefen dollars on a pair of 
deuces. Ze Generale is a bad man at ze national 
game," 






594 IN THE MENAGERIE. 

Campanini, it is well known, is exceedingly economi- 
cal, and the loss of eleven dollars he gulped down as 
well as he could, sinking it away below the region of 
his lower register. It was a misfortune he will never 
be able to forget entirely, but General Thomas Thumb 
is a perfect basilisk to the distinguished tenor. When- 
ever their shows exhibit in the same town the sinsfer 
looks up the dwarf and challenges him to a game of 
chance. They last met in St. Louis, a short time 
before Campanini' s departure for Europe, and oddly 
enough they settled on a game of billiards, although 
probably for prudential reasons on Campanini' s 
part, as it was impossible for Tom Thumb to win such 
a disastrous sum as eleven dollars from the Italian at 
that manly game. 

The game took place in the principal billiard-room of 
St. Louis, and it was rendered doubly interesting by the 
fact that Charles Mapleson, faultlessly attired, kept 
the talley. A great crowd was soon attracted into the 
room, and the only regret of the two distinguished 
players was that they had not charged a general 
admission, reserved seats extra. 

As the game proceded Campanini grew excited, and 
the sonorous notes of his full, rich voice resounded 
through the corridors of the great hotel. This, in 
turn, irritated the General, and his weak, piping tones, 
with a tinge of anger in them, contrasted strangely 
with the Italian's. The crowd laughed, and Cam- 
panini unconsciously exhibited some of the richest 
treasures of his stock-in-trade, while the General grew 
desperate and absolutely tried to reach across the 
table. 

" Fefteen," shouted Campanini. 

Failing in his first effort, the General again tried to 
accomplish the impossible. . 



IN THE MENAGERIE. 595 

" Fefteen," Campanini shouted once more. 

Just then Charles stepped forward and offered to 
lift up little Hop-o' My Thumb. 

" Who is playing this game, anyhow? " the General 
fiercely demanded. 

"Fefteen," again shouted Campanini. 

" That makes three times the bloody Italian has 
said ' fefteen,' " Thumb remarked, regaining his lost 
temper, and then to Campanini' s dismay he proceeded 
leisurely to win the game. 

" Elefen dollars at pokair, twenty-five cents at bil- 
liards — elefen twenty -five," the tenor kept muttering 
during the rest of the day, and that night at the opera 
Col. Mapleson could not understand why Campanini 
was so hoarse. 

The "Wild Ape of Borneo " seems to be quite an 
intelligent animal and displays first-rate taste in choos- 
ing his company. He has learned by experience that 
girls were made to be hugged and kissed. Through 
the bars of his cage he has seen many a rural lass's 
waist in the power of a plough-boy's arm, and watched 
their lips meet in a smack that more than discounted 
the old minstrel joke about the sound resembling the 
noise made by a cow pulling her hoof out of the mud. 
It was no wonder, then, that when the "wild ape" got 
out of his cage, while the circus was exhibiting down 
South, he forgot all his Borneo breeding, and made a 
rush for one of the prettiest girls under the flapping 
canvas. He got one arm around her neck and with 
the paw that was free caught her chignon and made a 
desperate effort to obtain a kiss. The girl's escort 
w r as at first terrified and felt like climbing one of the 
quarter-poles, all the females in the neighborhood 
shrieked, and the males began to dive under their 
seats. At last a gentleman rushed up with drawn re- 



596 



IN THE MENAGERIE. 



volver and fired a shot close to the ape's ear, where- 
upon he at once abandoned his osculatory efforts, made 
his way out of the tent and over the top of the canvas 
to the centre-pole, on the top of which he was soon 
seated, scratching his head and evidently enjoying the 
sensation he was making for the crowd in the street 
below. 

A curiosity that has been before the public for 




STEALING A KISS. 

almost twenty years is the "two-headed woman," 
Millie Christine. The fact of the matter is that there 
are two women joined together below the waist, but as 
they have a single physical organization their manager 
has seen fit to call them one. This freak of nature is 
more astonishing than were the Siamese twins or the 
Hungarian sisters. The two-headed woman was born 



IN THE MENAGERIE. 597 

of slave parents on the plantation of Alexander McCoy 
near the town of Whiteville, Columbus County, North 
Carolina, on July 11, 1851. Prior to this Millie 
Christine's mother had given birth to five boys and 
two girls, all of ordinary size and without deformity. 
The "two-headed woman" will be best understood 
by reading an extract from a lecture by Prof. Pan- 
coast of the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. 
The Professor examined this curiosity and discussed 
upon the subject before a large gathering of medical 
men. In introducing Millie and Christine, he said he 
considered them the most interesting monstrosity of 
their class that has ever come under the notice of 
scientific men, far more interesting than the Siamese 
twins. In the midst of his discourse the young ladies 
entered, clad in green silk on their two bodies, pretty 
little bronze boots on their four feet, white kids on 
their four hands. They moved forward like an ex- 
panded V, with a crab-like movement that was not 
ungraceful. Born back-to-back, the Professor ex- 
plained that the natural desire of each to walk face 
forward had twisted them in their present position. 
Separate entities, separate individualities, each can 
pursue separate lines of thought and conversation inde- 
pendent of the other. From habit their appetites call 
for food and drink at the same time. All the ills of 
flesh are not, however, necessarily theirs in common. 
One may have the toothache and the other be free 
from any ache. But in the examination conducted to- 
day the Professor discovered a remarkable development 
of sensibility since his previous examination, eight years 
ago. Touchingthem on any extreme of the body, on any 
foot, for example, both in common were conscious of 
the touch. Christine has been and is now the larger 
and stronger of the two. As children they used to 



598 IN THE MENAGERIE. 

have little struggles and quarrels for supremacy, but, 
as they could not get away from each other, they early 
concluded that the best way to get along in their novel 
path through life was to yield to each other. Their 
present happiness and affection for each other is an 
example for couples who are yoked together in marital 
bonds. Sometimes Christine rolls over Millie in bed 
without awakening her. Both can sleep separately. 
They can stand and walk on their outside legs, but 
they prefer to walk on all fours. Millie cannot lift up 
Christine's legs, or Christine Millie's legs. Since the 
Hungarian sisters, there has been no similar case re- 
ported reaching adult life for one hundred and seventy 
years. The bond of union between these, which is 
just above the bones of the spine, is chiefly cartilagin- 
ous, but the spines are so closely approximated that 
there is an osseous union between them. To the ques- 
tion by Professor Pancoast, whether either was engaged 
to be married, each denied the soft impeachment with 
decision, though the Professor explained that physi- 
cally there are no serious objections to the marriage 
of Her or Them ; but morally there was a most de- 
cided one. During the Professor's lecture the Misses 
Christine Millie and Millie Christine appeared very 
much interested in the diagnosis of their singular con- 
dition and evidenced their superior intelligence by 
their apt and ready answers. 

Turning from the human to the zoological branch of 
the exhibition, we find the usual assortment of animals 
from the monkey up to Jumbo, the elephant, who is only 
one of a dozen in the possession of his owner. All per- 
forming elephants are well trained, and there is scarcely 
one that cannot figure in the ring, responding to the 
good advice of the trainer, as the keepers often style 
themselves. The monkeys are always a source of 



IX THE MENAGERIE. 



599 



amusement, and never loose their drawing power. 
They are intelligent animals, but the inclination they 
have for mischief makes them quite dangerous. They 
tell a funny story about an actor out West who had a 
pet monkey that he carried with him wherever he 
went, even to the theatre. Jocko appeared to be per- 




JOCKO PLAYING COMEDY. 



fectly harmless, and as he had been at the theatre 
night after night without making trouble, his master 
never dreamt that he would do anything out of the 
way. Imagine his surprise therefore when one night 
as he was in the midst of a comedy part down came 



600 IN THIS MENAGERIE. 

Jocko from the ' ' flies ' ' with a false face he had filched 
out of the property-room. His appearance brought 
down the house and the play was spoiled. 

A traveller in Japan writing about the amusements 
there tells us of a very remarkable Sigmian specimen. 
He says : "There is an unpretentious show, costing 
one cent to witness, that is full of interest to those 
who have leanings toward Darwin's theory of the 
origin of mankind. It has a trained monkey of no 
mean attainments. The creature stands upright about 
three feet high, a well-developed and intellectual- 
looking monke}', which will go through, all the postur- 
ing known to the famous India-rubber man, and some 
that that famous individual could not throw himself 
into, but the crowning feat that he has been taught is 
to dance the Japanese dance to perfection, taking the 
exact step, having the correct sway of the body, keep- 
ing time faultlessly, and using his arms and hands in 
exact accord with the movements of the feet. It is 
difficult to realize that a dumb brute can be educated 
as completely as this creature is. Oscar Wilde and 
this monkey would make a strong partnership in the 
platform business, for the monkey is certainly an 
aesthete — " a darling and a daisy. " 

If any reader wants to buy a menagerie he can ob- 
tain his curiosities from dealers in New York or Europe. 
He must have plenty of money though, as the prices 
of animals range high, as will be seen in the following 
figures: An elephant may be had for $16,000; lion 
and lioness with cage, $9,000; sea cow, $8,000; pair 
of large leopards and two smaller ditto, $5,000 ; Aus- 
tralian kangaroo, $2,000 ; Australian wombat, $12,000 ; 
ostrich, $1,000; royal tiger, $5,000; sacred camel, 
$2,000 ; rare birds, monkeys and lesser animals, in- 



IN THE MENAGERIE. 601 

eluding those of American nativity, $20,000 ; total, 
$60,000. 

Among the rarest animals, says a writer on this sub- 
ject, are the hippopotamus and the gnu, or horned- 
horse. A first-class hippopotamus is worth five or six 
thousand dollars, an elephant from three to six thou- 
sand dollars, a giraffe is worth about three thousand 
dollars, a Bengal tiger or tigress will bring two thou- 
sand dollars, leopards vary from six to nine hundred 
dollars, a hyena is worth about five hundred dollars, 
while an ostrich rates at three hundred dollars. The 
price-list shows that, although expenses may be heavy, 
receipts are proportionately large, and that it does not 
require many large beasts to make a good business for 
one trader. A New York house in three years sold 
twenty lions, twelve elephants, six giraffes, four Bengal 
tigers, eight leopards, eight hyenas, twelve ostriches 
and two hippopotami, being a total business of about 
$112,000, or over $37,000 per annum, in the line of 
larger beasts alone, exclusive of the smaller show- 
beasts, such as monkeys, and exclusive also of birds, 
which latter items more than double the amount given. 
Gnus, or horned-horses, have come into great demand 
of late years, both from their oddity and rarity, and 
are valued at seventeen or eighteen hundred dollars 
apiece. An elephant is always in demand, and sells, 
whether it be male or female, large or small, " trick" 
or otherwise. Ostriches, though heavy eaters, are not 
very expensive, as they have cast-iron stomachs and 
digest stone, glass, iron, or almost anything else tha 
one chooses to give them, though they are judges 
of good meat when they get it. They are not the only 
creatures that eat glass. Heller or Houdin — I forget 
which of these magicians — found a taste among Ori- 
ental jugglers for pounded glass, which they ate in 



602 IN THE MENAGERIE. 

large quantities. A trial by the Caucasian trickster 
developed the fact that glass was not only not injuri- 
ous when taken in reasonable doses, but that it served as 
an appetizer, stimulating the stomach to hunger after 
food. There are two species of ostrich known to the 
trade, the black and the gray ; both are very strong, 
fleet, and practically untamable. Lions, tigers and 
leopards form constituent attractions of almost all 
menageries, and are too familiar to need description. 
It may be here remembered, however, that people who 
deal with these creatures find that there is compara- 
tively little danger to themselves to be dreaded from 
either lions or lionesses. These animals never attack 
any human being, save when excessively hungry ; and 
when enraged, from any cause, always show such visi- 
ble signs as put their keepers on their guard ; whereas, 
the opposite of these statements is true in regard to 
tigers and leopards — the latter especially, which are 
regarded by those in the trade as the most dangerous, 
cruel and treacherous of all the beasts with which they 
are brought in contact. American lions or jaguars, 
and American or Brazilian tigers are very fierce, un- 
tamable and strong, although inferior in size to the 
lion or tiger proper. Of monkeys and baboons little 
more than has already been said need be repeated here. 
There are about one hundred and fifty different species 
of these creatures, the most intelligent of which is the 
ringtailed monkey, and the most stupid, that variety 
known as the lion monkey, from its being gifted, 
instead of brains, with a long mane. The variety of 
deer and antelope are numerous, and always find ready 
purchasers ; the genuine antelope will bring two or 
three hundred dollars in the market. 

A show of wild animals is one thing, and a very 
good thing sometimes; but the same number of- wild 



IN THE MENAGERIE. 603 

beasts when not in show — but merely in winter quar- 
ters or out and awaiting sale, presents a different, and, 
sometimes, a curious spectacle. Thus in a certain 
back yard in the city of New York, as singular a sight 
is presented to the lover of animal life as is afforded 
probably in the range of the whole world. You enter 
by a low doorway, and at first glance you see only a 
number of boxes, with iron bars in front — amateur 
cages in fact — and arranged alongside of each other, 
just as cases may be, without the slightest order or 
general arrangement. If you look a second time at 
these boxes you will be made aware of the fact that 
they are inhabited by certain moving animals ; for 
pairs of bright eyes will gleam out upon you through 
the iron bars and occasional switching of some beastly 
tails against the sides of the cages will become audible, 
as will every now and then a deep smothered roar. 
Inspecting the box-cages or cage-boxes, more closely 
you will see, further, that one of them contains a three- 
year old lion, just getting his young moustache, or, 
what answers the same purpose to a lion — his mane. 
Next box to this you will find a lioness, about the same 
age as her mate, a fine specimen of African female, 
who seems very much attached to a dog that shares 
her cage with her in perfect harmony, at least so far 
as the lioness is concerned, for she does all she can to 
live at peace with the dog, yielding to his wishes in all 
particulars, giving up her meat whenever he takes a 
fancy to it, and getting out of his way whenever he 
wishes to walk about, although doggy does not seem 
to be a very amiable partner, and every now and then 
gives the lioness a bit of his mind by biting her in the 
ear. A little beyond this strange couple lie two more 
boxes — the upper one containing a pair of young 
hunting leopards, as playful as young kittens, which 






604 IN THE MENAGERIE. 

spend their time in calling to the cats of the neighbor- 
hood, the lower one' being the scene of the imprison- 
ment of a full-grown, very handsome, very cross 
leopardess, who is always snarling and seeking whom 
or what she may devour. This latter beast has a 
special antipathy to a young lad who has charge of her, 
and tries half a dozen times a day to make mince-meat 
of him. On the opposite side are a number of boxes, 
containing monkeys of various species and baboons. 
One of these monkeys is a jovial female, christened 
Victoria, and is one of the most expert pickpockets in 
New York, which is saying a great deal. Vic can 
relieve a visitor of his watch and chain or pocket-book 
in a manner most refreshing to a monkey and moralist 
to witness, and although as ugly as sin is as quick as 
lightning. Next door to this kleptomaniac ape is a 
happy family of monkeys — father, mother and baby — 
who live together lively as clams at the turn of tide. 
On the ground, at a little distance, lies another box, 
which contains a monster baboon. This fellow is 
called Jonas, and is, without exception, the ugliest 
individual in existence to which the Almighty has ever 
given a shape — such as it is. These big apes are fre- 
quently palmed off on the public for gorillas ; they are 
strong as giants, gentle as lambs, and can be taught 
tricks like dogs. As in the case of canines, severity 
and kindness are resorted to in training them. Prof. 
Harry Parker, in speaking to me about educating his 
dogs, said he rarely used. the. whip upon them, but 
endeavored, by properly feeding and speaking kind 
words to them, to make them obedient to his com- 
mand, still the whip must be used. Dogs that hop 
around on two feet have their little limbs lashed from 
under them until they almost feel the sting of the raw- 
hide in the tone of the trainer's voice. Clown dogs, 



IN THE MENAGERIE. 605 

which have recently been prominent features of circuses 
and variety shows, are taught to go through every 
article that is put down upon the floor by their 
masters ; that is why they squirm through a hoop, run 
under and overturn chairs, pass under bundles and 
upset the leaping basket that is used in dog circuses. 
Prof. Parker and Prof. Willis Cobb, I may here 
remark, are the best dog-trainers in the country, and 
both have large and fine collections of educated cani- 
nes. 

In the rear portion of the yard which we have been 
visiting is an inclosure, in which three or four horned 
horses or ponies, called gnus, are digesting their 
rations ; next to these is a case in which is confined a 
fretful porcupine, who shows his bristles on the least 
provocation, and sometimes when there is no insult 
meant at all. The catalogue of cages or boxes is com- 
pleted by that in which is held in duress a Brazilian 
tiger of the fiercest possible description, who does 
nothing but glare upon you and want to eat you. The 
meat-eaters in the collection are fed only once a day — 
at noon — and cost about a dollar per day to feed ; the 
fruit-eaters, like the elephant, eat all the time, as fancy 
prompts ; while the vegetarians, like the monkeys, take 
their three square meals a day. As a rule, all animals 
enjoy a better average of health than man, because 
they have no acquired tastes or dissipated habits. The 
elephant lives for centuries ; the parrot is a centena- 
rian, while the lion lives but twenty years or so. On 
the whole, the average life of man is greater than that 
of the majority of the so-called beasts, though their 
average of health exceeds his. 

Wax- works, of one kind or other, enter into the dis- 
play made in the menagerie tent ; but the figures all 
seem broken or enfeebled by long usage, and instead of 



606 IN THE MENAGERIE. 

being attractive, many of them are repulsive. How 
different from Madame Tussaud's exhibition — the 
prototype of all the efforts that have been made in the 
wax-work line ! A correspondent who visited this dis- 
play many years ago, when the display had a world- 
wide fame, wrote : — 

" Madame Tussaud's famous exhibition of wax stat- 
uary and works in wax afforded me a very entertaining 
evening's occupation. Here are full-length portraits 
in wax of all the notables of the world ; Queen Victo- 
ria, Prince Albert, the royal children, George III., 
Queen Charlotte, George IV., William IV., George 
II., Louis XIV., Emperor Louis Napoleon and his 
empress in their bridal costume, Henry VIII., Cardi- 
nal Wolsey, all the present sovereigns of Europe, Kos- 
suth, Gen. Tom Thumb, etc., numbering nearly two 
hundred figures in all, so artistically arranged and so 
well executed that the effect upon the visitor on enter- 
ing is the same as on coming into a grand drawing-room 
filled with noble ladies and gentlemen. So perfect is 
everything that you look to hear the figures speak, and 
can hardly convince yourself that they do not move. 

" The second room of Madame Tussaud's exhibition 
is called the Robe Room, which contains the figure of 
George IV. wearing the order of the Garter. This 
robe was worn by his majesty in the procession to 
Westminster Abbey, at his coronation. To the right 
of this is the robe the same monarch wore at the open- 
ing of Parliament, and on the left the robe worn by 
the King in returning to Westminster Abbey after the 
coronation. The cost of these three robes was about 
$90,000. The third room of the exhibition is called 
the Golden Chamber, and contains relics of the Em- 
peror Napoleon, among which is the camp bedstead 
used by Napoleon during his seven years at St. Helena, 



IN THE MENAGERIE. 607 

with the mattress and pillow on which he died ; the 
coronation robe of Napoleon and the robe of the Em- 
press Josephine ; the celebrated flag of Elba ; the 
sword worn by the Emperor during his campaign in 
Egypt, and many other relics of him. In another room 
is the carriage in which Napoleon made the campaign 
of Russia, and which was captured on the evening of 
the battle of Waterloo ; also the carriage he used at 
St. Helena, in which, of course, I sat down, according 
to custom. 

" In another room are many relics of the French 
Revolution, among which are the instruments by which 
the unfortunate Louis XIV. was beheaded, as also 
Robespierre and others. These are but a few of the 
many curious and interesting objects to be seen at this 
exceedingly entertaining exhibition ; and I passed sev- 
eral hours here, quite lost in the examination of the 
collection and the recollections which the various arti- 
cles awakened. 

The menagerie, no matter how small or how exten- 
sive it may be, always has much within its cages and 
lying around under its canvas to interest young and 
old alike. It is like a volume of natural history that 
may be forever studied without exhausting the interest 
that attaches to it, and the knowledge contained in 
it. Thrown down after a single perusal, the book is 
picked up again and again, and each time its pictures 
and pages seem as fresh and entertaining as they were 
in the beginning. So, too, the collection of curiosi- 
ties, that now-a-days form a very important part of 
every tent-show, never loses its attraction for the 
public. Gray-haired men who in boyhood looked, 
open-mouthed and astonished, into the den of lions, 
still find the same pleasure in contemplating these 



608 



IN THE MENAGERIE. 



wonderful beasts from a safe distance, and take delight 
in making their children acquainted with them. The 
tangled forests and matted jungles of new regions are 
constantly giving up new specimens of wild animal 
life ; and with the old reliable attractions still plen- 
tiful, and startling novelties occasionally coming to 
the surface, there is every reason to believe that the 
menagerie will retain its present hold upon the hearts 
of the people, and last as long as there is canvas in 
the world to cover one or color enough to fill an ordi- 
nary stand of bills. 

Now we have seen about all there is to see. Passing 
out and by the side-show blower with his fat woman 
and lean man, his glass blower and Irish Circassian 
girls, his juggler, and the heartless band of music he 
has playing at one end of his dirty tent; we move 
down the street, the sound of the side-show music dies 
out, the canvas fades behind the house-tops, and we 
have left the show world with all its sunshine and 
shadow, its laughter and tears. 




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